


I know the sound of your heart

by lemoncave



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, M/M, References to Depression, Transformation, somewhat invented medicine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 00:18:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 33,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15449076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemoncave/pseuds/lemoncave
Summary: “Might as well just say it: at the risk of you kicking me out, I live here. In that case,” and he pointed over to Louis’s case on the floor next to the dresser. Oh my god,Louis’ case.What. “I’m your guitar,” he finished.Niall just stared at him. “You’re my guitar. For real.”“Yep,” he nodded.In a world where 1D never even tried out for The X Factor and where people have magic to a limited extent that isn't all that cool or showy, Niall is still a musician who's just finished his first headlining tour and is about to begin work on his second major label album. After taking two weeks off and after a pretty terrible/wonderful dream, he wakes up the next morning to find that his absolute favourite, most beloved and oldest guitar, which he's baptized Louis and which he might be a little too attached to, has transformed into a human (though he's actually been alive for a while now).





	1. it's our hearts that make the beat

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, I never thought I'd make it this far.
> 
> My contribution to the 1D Collab! Huge congratulations to the mods for making it so stress-free and fun, I had a blast!
> 
> This thing was born out of a need to vent, and it took six months to mold something I liked out of it, but I'm actually pretty proud of the result! I can't believe the difference between where I started and what the story ended up becoming.
> 
> A few shoutouts, first to my friend Vir for hearing me talk about this and other fics continuously and always brainstorming with me :) 
> 
> And second, to my collab partner Roxie, who was amazing!! I honestly don't think I would feel the way I do about this fic if it weren't for her, she was so supportive and sweet, and also just as importantly, she made [THE MOST AMAZING mix](https://open.spotify.com/user/secretpowergirl/playlist/32DfWe22vdqlL22DFbLgaM)! Seriously, if in a random universe out there this fic were a movie, I'd want this as the soundtrack. There's just so much detail in it!! I keep finding new things about it that I love every time I hear it! And I can't believe the amount of connections to the story she managed while making something cohesive on its own, her own storyarc. She did an _incredible_ job and I couldn't be happier. Thank you so much again, Roxie! You were the best partner ever :D 
> 
> This story did what it had to do for me and that's good enough, but if anyone finds enjoyment in it as well, I will be very very happy.
> 
> Title from "The Sound" by The 1975. Also, obviously I don't mean to imply anything about the real people and I'm just borrowing their lovely faces.

After being on tour on-and-off for the past 4 months and taking two weeks to just be back at his house and not have to deal with anything or anyone he didn’t want to, Niall knew he needed to start working on his next project. He was always writing down things here and there, phrases he thought were interesting, images that caught his eye and made his imagination run wild, but now it was time to seriously consider where he wanted to go, what he wanted to sound like, what he wanted to say. He’d arranged to meet Liam at the studio on Monday.

He pushed the glass doors as he entered the studio building. It hadn’t changed at all since he’d last come around a year ago (same white walls, same wooden floor, same yellow lights) except for maybe the plant next to the elevator — it used to be bushier. He took the stairs to the next floor, where Liam was probably already waiting for him.

For his first album, he’d worked with a variety of producers, with Liam, newcomer to the scene, being one of them. The label had suggested it and it had turned out great — not only did they work together very well (Liam was very good at translating Niall’s ideas and understood what he’d wanted to do very quickly, so those two songs had come out so easily) but they’d bonded over their inexperience with actual record labels and their love of music, becoming close friends, even closer once ‘Drag Me Down’ peaked at #35 in the singles chart, becoming his signature hit.

Now he met Liam whenever they had some free time to hang out. It’d been months since the last time, probably for his birthday — it’d still been warm outside last time they’d met and now the forecast said light snow may come down during the week. They texted and called from time to time but that failed to fully convey Liam’s calming presence, and they hadn’t really found the time to see each other until now.

When Niall entered the room, he saw Liam sitting with his laptop over his lap, headphones on, focus intently on the screen, but he looked over when Niall waved at him and put the computer on the coffee table next to the couch, getting off the black leather chair. “Niall! Hey, man, good to see you,” Liam greeted him with a warm smile, maneuvering his hands to hug him over the guitar case. His mouth hung open in outrage when he took in Niall’s outfit. “How are you only wearing a jacket and a light scarf? Can you still feel you fingers?”

Niall only laughed and shrugged. “I don’t feel that cold.” He’d been more sensitive when he’d been younger but at some point when he grew up, he had really stopped feeling it at all. It had always made his mum fuzz over him going out with only a jumper when it was like 6 degrees celsius outside.

Liam touched Niall’s cheeks and pouted. “And you’re practically burning. You’re a furnace, is what you really are, a furnace in disguise. I wish I could just wear two layers instead of the fourteen I had to put on to get out of the house.” He shook his head and huffed jokingly. “I’m just going to ignore it, we have things to discuss.”

As Liam secured some tea and biscuits from the kitchen, Niall headed over to the couch and immediately took his guitar out, checked it was still in tune and moved the pegs accordingly.

“Oh, hey, Louis, glad to see you’re still around,” Liam addressed the guitar as he re-entered the room. Though all his friends referred to Louis by name when they talked about his guitar after all these years, Liam was one of the very few that took to addressing it like it was another person in the room, jokingly but in good nature. Niall just appreciated that Liam hadn’t mocked him when he’d seen Niall do it in the first place and had followed along like it wasn’t that weird.

Most people who named their belongings, like their cars or their computers, or in his case his guitar, tended to choose traditionally female names, but Niall had never seen why he couldn’t name something a traditionally male name, go against the norm in a way, so when he’d finally saved up enough money to buy his first guitar at age fifteen (it wasn’t technically his first guitar, that honour belonged to his dad’s old guitar, but Louis was the first he’d bought with his own money) he was determined to name it something typically male.

He figured, one way or another, there must have been a reason he’d chosen ‘Louis’ in the end. Maybe a song he’d heard or a character he might have seen somewhere that got the name in his brain. He couldn’t identify the immediate cause, but in all honesty, he’d just felt like a Louis to him. He hadn’t had to think about it — he saw it online, contacted the guy and when he gave it a try, it just sounded like Louis to him.

People didn’t often question the name all that much, but the extent of his attachment often got funny looks. Even his closest friends (even Harry and Liam, who had their own quirks with their instruments) had all had a moment where they stared amazed at just how much Niall clinged to it, as Louis was the one thing Niall was never laid-back about — he’d always felt protective of it, not liking when anyone else played it or when his mum moved it around while cleaning (he didn’t tell people they couldn’t _touch_ it but his friends said the look on his face was more than enough), and felt a loyalty to it that bordered on jealousy — he’d tried other guitars, he _owned_ other guitars and he _loved_ his other guitars, but they didn’t feel the same. All guitars have their own unique sound, but Louis just blew anyone else away to Niall, and inspired his creativity the most, hence, why he always brought it along.

“I still love those drawings, man. Zayn really outdid himself,” Liam said as he sat down, putting the two cups on the coffee table.

Niall smiled and started tracing the heart on the side, moving to the stag underneath next, letting his finger glide over the smooth and glossy wood. He had told Zayn he wanted to customize his guitar in some way when they first met but that he’d never been able to choose what to put, so, come his birthday, Zayn had drawn lots of things on it as a gift, and tracing them had become a very relaxing activity for Niall — he could almost physically see the extra energy go to Louis when he did.

He’d never understood how the colours stayed so vibrant and didn’t smudge even the tiniest possible bit after putting his fingers on them so often, and Zayn refused to tell him his ‘magic secrets’. “I think I’m going to ask him to do my white strap too. Make it a matching set.”

At first it was more hanging out than it was a business meeting — they talked about their lives since they’d last seen each other, what was new (Liam had started dating a girl not long ago), what had changed (Niall had let his natural brown hair grow again so only the tips still had the blond), what had stayed the same (Harry forgetting not everyone was awake when he was and calling them at midnight), how they felt about it (partly annoyed, partly glad to hear from him). Niall fiddled with Louis absentmindedly meanwhile, plucking arpeggios here and there or tracing the drawings over and over.

Eventually, they talked music seriously. He showed Liam what he had already written down, played a tentative version of every song, and Liam got right down to business. “I love that soft one, the ‘even when the night changes’ one. There’s a lot of room wherever you want to take it. And the other one, that could definitely be rockier and a lot of fun. They sound great, Niall.”

Niall grinned from ear to ear, ecstatic to have Liam’s approval. Much as he had the final say on the songs, Liam knew so much and had such a good ear that his support meant the world to him, definitely more than most people’s.

He’d told himself he wouldn’t make the decision yet but being around him made him want to ask anyway, so he chanced it. “Liam, how would you feel about producing the new record, all of it?”

He wanted to change things up a bit, go for a more upbeat atmosphere in his new music — after the introspectiveness of his first LP, he was thinking a livelier, more energetic tone could be a great path to explore, and Liam would be ideal for that — he’d proved it with the two tracks he’d done last time.

And, well, he didn’t want to dwell too much on it but he knew he needed the next album to be as much of a hit as the last one, possibly even more, lest it became his sophomore slump. It wasn’t like he’d sell out just for that, but he had a lot riding on getting a good album, if he wanted to continue making music at such a scale. He had a lot to prove still — he could write the songs everyone would remember and sing their hearts out to more than once, he was more than just the singer-songwriter of the month, he was here to stay as long as he was able to. And if Liam could make the process any easier, it could be a godsend to his worries.

Liam raised his eyebrows and his mouth hung open in surprise. “Really? You want me for all of it?”

Niall nodded, and the transformation in Liam’s face was like watching a supernova. He tried to hug him with Louis trapped in the middle.

“Thank you! Thank you, thank you,” he sang. “Only a select few have trusted me with their entire record. Usually it’s a couple of tracks! But you want all of them!”

Liam was giggling, dancing in his seat, making Niall equally delighted. They’d have fun, for sure.

After that, it was difficult to reign themselves in enough to write so they made strategies (rather, plans for hanging out) instead, and they went through Niall’s notebook again with a critical eye, talked about what Niall wanted out of Liam and the record.

By the time they were outside the recording studio, it was dark. After agreeing to meet again in three days, Niall was turning to head home but Liam made a move as if to stop him. He opened his mouth but hesitated. The worried frown told Niall all he needed to know, though — he’d wondered when it would come up. He gripped Louis’ case’s straps. “You’ve been talking to Harry?”

“He texted me on Saturday,” Liam sighed, sounding almost relieved Niall had said it first. He grimaced when Niall just scowled. “I’m sorry, I know you don’t want people intruding on how you deal with it, but he sounded worried and, well, that worried _me_. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m _fine_. It’s just another episode that’s taking a little longer to leave, it’s nothing to fuzz about. I already feel much better just from being with you!” Niall tried to convince Liam, but his tight lips said he was failing. “Seriously, Li, if it gets worse, you’ll know all about it. We’re going to be seeing each other a lot more now,” Niall smiled and hopefully changed the subject.

Liam stared closely at Niall, examining the truth of his statement, and eventually rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’ll talk to Harry. Call me if you need to, though? Please? I won’t mind, if that’s what’s stopping you.”

Niall looked away. It wasn’t that exactly — he knew Liam wouldn’t judge and that he’d be happy to help, but he didn’t need it right now. It hadn’t got worse! It was just the usual gloominess that followed him around but if he didn’t think about it, he didn’t notice it, so it wasn’t affecting him necessarily. He’d always dealt with it on his own and he’d rather keep it that way.

He didn’t want to make Liam feel like he didn’t trust him, though. He grabbed Liam’s shoulder and squeezed it, looked him right in the eyes. “I know you don’t mind. I promise to let you know if anything happens, okay?”

Liam nodded and gave Niall a small smile, but didn’t seem awfully convinced.

He wished Harry hadn’t found out about this one time, just because he hated a) worrying Harry, and b) Harry making his other friends worried for unnecessary reasons. He told him so as he was walking to the station to take the tube back home. _If you’re going to make Liam worried too, then it’s for nothing. I’m fine._

Harry didn’t take long to text back. _:( i don’t mean to worry him but you haven’t been talking to me much and he was seeing you today so_

_Sorry :( how are you? is it any better?_

He was reluctant to admit it but he hated lying to Harry. _Still the same._

Niall put his phone back in his pocket, gripping the guitar case’s strap tighter when it almost fell off his shoulder as he walked, and concentrated again on not crashing into anyone or getting hit by a car.

He hated worrying his friends about his mood swings, his ‘episodes’. It was something he’d been dealing with since he was a teenager, when he would suddenly realise his thoughts had taken a turn for the pessimistic about his future and himself, enough to bother him, but they only lasted a few days, a week at most, and then he felt normal again.

A new one had appeared while he’d been on tour, around the time they hit Belgium. He’d noticed his lyrics had stopped being the light-hearted, fun stories he’d been going for lately and turned more moody and self-pitying than he’d liked. He figured the hecticness of the last few months had aggravated his emotions, and that tended to make his brain go weird for a while.

He didn’t think he should let his crew know, not when they were almost home again — though he loved his touring band and considered them his friends, he didn’t really feel like he could talk to them about this sort of thing just yet, so he kept to lighter topics and joked around a lot. It was a little shallow but enough to not let him brood. It would eventually pass, as it always did, and he did his best to entertain his remaining concert audiences despite his feelings.

Harry knew only because he’d caught him in the middle of it. Their tours had overlapped in Paris for a night and Harry had only needed to spend an hour with him to know he’d been out of sorts. He had been there when other episodes hit before, when they’d lived together (he hadn’t thought they were particularly noticeable but Harry had just _seen_ them) so he made an effort to call or text more often, ‘subtly’ checking in on Niall. He always worried but he knew to leave it alone and be there if Niall wanted to talk about it, so Harry tried not to push and just be a presence around Niall. He’d had an easier time when distance hadn’t been an issue.

He felt the buzz in his jacket as he was waiting for the next train. _It’s been going on for much longer than before_

_Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it? I promise i won’t judge! I want to help :( it’s been too long for normal_

_And i want you to feel well again you know?_

Niall’s thumbs hovered over the keys. He knew that, of course he did, but it was just a matter of time. _I know, Haz. I’ll be fine_

_Just give me time? It’ll go away like it always does, trust me_

_I do trust you but it still worries me,_ Harry immediately answered. _Promise me you’ll call if you need to okay? Love you!_

Niall smiled at his phone. He hadn’t been talking to Harry much, that was true. He could remedy that right now, though. _Thanks, Haz. How was your show? Or not yet?_

Harry sent text after text telling him all about last night’s show and how he was getting ready while waiting for the opening act to start their set at the moment. Niall practically had his eyes glued to the screen as he was filled in on all that had happened while he’d been avoiding Harry, barely noticing the stops as they went by and almost missing his.

 _Guess what one of the fans gave me today,_ Harry sent as Niall was opening the door to his house and clicking on the lights.

 _A bouquet of roses_ , Niall replied.

_No but that would be really cool! I want flowers now_

_Anyway no wrong answer! Your souvenir will go to the trash now you don’t know me at all!_

Niall could almost see Harry putting his hand over his heart, wounded at Niall guessing wrong. He huffed in amusement and retorted, _I know you enough to guess you haven’t got me one yet_. Harry never got him any presents with anticipation. His excuse was that he could never find the perfect thing to give to other people if he planned it, so he left it to chance, which really meant last minute for him. But, spontaneous as they were, his gifts tended to be thoughtful and clearly showed how much he cared, so Niall didn’t complain.

_Okay, not yet. But my tour’s almost over, so who’s to say I will get you one now, Mr. I Know Harry Styles So Much Better Than He Knows Himself?_

He was taking the time to capitalize all of the words now and add commas, this was going to veer off-topic quick, Niall thought as he laughed. _What did the fan give you?_

_Right_

_A bunch of them were outside the venue waiting and this girl apparently made rings as a hobby or something and she made me one! It’s gorgeous._ Then he sent a photo of this beautiful silver ring with a large, black stone. Despite the colour, and even in a hasty photo, he could see how brightly it shone.

Niall replied, impressed, _That’s pretty amazing!_

_I know! It was really thoughtful of her_

_She told me she put a spell on it to make the stone shine bright and as you can see it’s *really* shiny :D_

Niall could just imagine him examining his hand all day long and wiggling his fingers to make the ring catch the light. The fan must have known just how much Harry liked his jewelry, and that spell would surely keep him happy for a week.

Sometimes Niall envied people with magic. They could always make things just that bit more special. Just a thought, a few moments and tah-dah, magically-enhanced objects at your service. He could almost feel those vibrations, like static in the air, that spell-casting left behind.

It was a pity magic wasn’t as fantastic as in the stories he’d read when he was younger, though — it couldn’t make objects appear and disappear or change shape or levitate or anything of the sort, let alone anything more incredible.

Magic could only make an object’s attributes stronger, not create new ones, so if an object couldn’t resist water, for example, magic would not change that. What constituted an attribute was open to wide interpretation — for example, an attribute of a teddy bear could conceivably be that it comforted people so, technically, it was within the realm of magic to affect that. If you could argue the connection, you could use magic on it. However, how the spell worked would still be through something more tangible — making the colours look warmer or making the fabric softer maybe. It depended on who was doing it.

Technically all people possessed a minimum of magic but only about a third of the population had the amount necessary for spells. There was a test taken at around ten years old that confirmed one way or another and gave a broad view of the amount of power in a person, but people generally knew before that. It could be taken again as many times as wanted, they even sold them to the public now if you didn’t want a doctor, but it was exceptionally rare for the power levels to move in big leaps, if they moved at all.

Niall couldn’t cast spells, so the few classes he’d had about the basic principles of magic hadn’t been of much use to him, or half his classmates, beyond satisfying his curiosity. He wished he could do even just a little bit, though. It must be so cool to make rings shinier with just your mind.

 _So when do I get to see you again, now that you’ve made your grand tour of Europe?_ Niall asked, focusing again on the conversation. Harry didn’t have all that much time for Niall to get distracted.

_Back in a week! Around next monday if all goes to plan_

_I can’t wait to see you all! I’ve missed your company_

_And liam’s_

_I hear zayn’s doing pretty well for himself too_

_Yeah, he’s been commissioned for a pretty big piece so he’s been slaving away, or so he’s said_ , Niall wrote. Zayn’s routine regarding his illustrations tended to vary a lot but he always said he was “tied to the desk, Niall.” That could mean figuratively, while he went to the park for inspiration or something, which could take a while to come upon him, or literally haven’t-left-my-chair-for-eight-hours-and-I’m-calling-to-get-my-brain-to-reset-itself sort of tied.

_Well he’s coming out to party at some point even if I have to drag him out_

_Same for you and liam i won’t take no for an answer!_ Harry threatened playfully. Niall laughed at the promises Harry couldn’t keep. But soon after, Harry sent _Hey, sorry, but i’m about to go out now we’ll talk later yeah? Love you!_

After leaving his phone on the table, Niall headed to his kitchen, looking for something to eat. He put the TV on in the background — he didn’t really feel like watching anything but sometimes the silence of his house got a little too much for him and the background noise of whatever was on helped distract him. He’d be fine soon, no use dwelling on it.

 

*********

 

Niall thought he’d been keeping a hold of it just fine but in only two days, it quickly became apparent he wasn’t.

He’d been ignoring his feelings for almost a month now. He’d had an easy time while he’d still be touring but the last two weeks had been harder to bear. He looked for things to do at all moments — he cleaned up his house from top to bottom (which he’d been neglecting in his laziness), he watched all the movies he hadn’t had the time for, he’d gone to the supermarket as soon as he’d run out of food, he’d answered his emails until there were none left.

But there were more hours in the day than he had things to do so inevitably he’d end up realising he’d been staring at a fixed point in the table for like thirty minutes, lost in thought.

He’d first think about the new record, excited and hoping he’d come up with good music for it, but his mind would start to wonder about the different outcomes — what if he didn’t come up with anything he felt was original? What if people didn’t like it? What if he’d really been a one-hit wonder?

And that would just turn to, what _would_ he do if it tanked? Would he go back home, disappoint his parents as he couldn’t hold on to his dream career? They’d be kind and not say it but surely they’d be crushed. Still keep at it despite lack of enthusiasm from other people? What would he even work as, if not as a musician? All he’d ever focused on was music, he didn’t know how to do anything else. He was still young but he wasn’t that young to start over from nowhere, or that’s what it felt like. Would he have to live under the shadow of his one hit? Would he ever escape it? Would he want to?

Normally, these kind of thoughts were easily dismissed — he was just afraid and he had to believe in himself, he’d find his way. Everyone dealt with this sort of worry once in a while, why wouldn’t he succeed just as well? _Think logically about it, Niall_. But when episodes hit, he really felt  crushed under the weight of all his doubts. It was almost funny that his biggest song was all about not letting the world crumble over you when he felt the complete opposite right now.

Normally, if he didn’t really think about the ever-present gloom, if he focused on the many other things he had to do, he didn’t feel it, only realised it was there when he had time to be bored, but a month in and he was caving in to the temptation to never leave his house again.

It only made him roll his eyes once he was out of his thirty-minute stupors — he hadn’t wanted to lie to Harry and Liam but obviously he hadn’t paid attention to how he really was feeling if two hours in silence made him so pessimistic. He’d see Liam’s worried expression when they’d left the studio and see Harry’s concerned texts, or remember the messages they’d both been sending and how he hadn’t wanted to reply with monosyllables but he didn’t know what else to answer. They were giving him space, somewhat, but they were clearly not as convinced as he’d tried to make them. He hated making them upset.

It was bothering him that this episode wouldn’t leave. He was tired of being afraid of where the silence of his house might lead him. He was afraid this was actually more serious than he was making it out to be.

He had thought he’d managed to distract himself enough, though. When he noticed those thoughts creeping in, he just shook himself, as if he could physically get them out, and _found_ something else to do. Sometimes, he’d just sleep for a few hours if he couldn’t come up with anything and felt bored. He thought he’d managed to ignore the gloom.

But when Niall woke up with a start on Wednesday, he knew he was kidding himself. Just as he was becoming aware of the ceiling, he sighed and felt his eyes getting teary.

He’d had such a _wonderful_ dream where someone, it hadn’t been anyone he recognised, just a cute boy with brown hair and the sweetest smile, was kissing him so lovingly and he was kissing back, they’d basically been cuddling and laughing, sharing stories about things he couldn’t remember anymore. He’d been having such a lovely time. And then he had to fucking wake up.

Most images were already fading, all but a few details gone, but those feelings of safety and warmth and _overwhelming happiness_ were sticking around.

He hated the dreams where he was in love. They weren’t very frequent for him and thank fuck for that because he always, always felt like shit when he inevitably woke up. The feelings were so strong that he always chased his sleep, not wanting to leave, but it was in vain — he could never find the same situation, no matter how much he concentrated on the last image he had. It wasn’t like a video he could pause and resume at will, sadly.

He shouldn’t have taken the stupid nap. How long had he been asleep anyway? It was already dark outside. He looked at the clock and saw 8.18pm. Niall groaned and rubbed his eyes.

He figured he should eat something before trying to fall back asleep and not wander his house for hours with too much energy, so he got up, made some tea and took some biscuits, his preferred meal for any time of day, and stayed on his couch, not really knowing what to do. He needed to vent some of his misery so he figured writing about it could help, and immediately grabbed Louis. He strummed and strummed whatever chord progression he could think of, trying to make up some lyrics meanwhile, until he felt less quietly hopeless.

Nothing sounded good, though, nothing at all, and he already felt like shit, he didn’t need anything else adding to that. He gave up.

He slumped over the guitar, and tried to stop his thoughts from spiraling to darker places, again.

He wanted comfort so badly right now. He wanted someone to just hug him and tell him he wasn’t alone. There was this urgent need to just have physical contact with somebody else, just an arm around him or a soft caress, just something to make him feel appreciated, and he knew that was why he’d had the dream in the first place, his body telling him what he was craving. It was a pattern he recognized after all these years.

Maybe he should give Harry or Liam a call. They said they wouldn’t mind. But after insisting so much he was fine and dismissing their concern, he didn’t want to admit he should have taken them more seriously. He’d promised he would but not right now. Tomorrow, when he felt able to explain how he felt. One more night wouldn’t change anything.

As he moved his hand in his distraction, he became aware of the familiar sort of reeded texture of the strings on his right palm and looked at Louis’ fretboard.

Louis always kept him company. He was his silver lining most times he felt the crushing weight of his solitude, as pointless as he sort of knew relying on it was. Yeah, Louis was an inanimate object and Niall was projecting a lot onto it, but Louis emanated positive energy to Niall and it helped smother the loneliness.

He hugged the guitar as tightly as he could, caressing the side of it, and closed his eyes.

Whenever he had episodes, touching Louis felt almost electric. Even now he felt it running through his fingers when he traced Zayn’s drawings on it. It kept him centered despite the turmoil in his mind.

Louis would probably be a good friend, if he could talk. If he were an actual person. They’d have a good time. He would know what to say, and he wouldn’t let Niall ignore his problems until they went away on their own. He should take that advice, regardless. Maybe he would.

The tingling in his fingers seemed stronger than before, almost encouraging his plan.

Niall huffed in mild amusement — his mind was taking his talking to Louis a bit far if he had answers now. He opened his eyes and gave the guitar a small smile.

Louis truly had been there with him for so long — had been there for his first amateur shows in Ireland, there when he first moved to London to try and make a career as a musician, basically there for every single show he’d done, for every milestone. He’d written every song with it, his EPs, his first Top 40 hit,  his first full-length album in its entirety, and that had made it into the Top 100 in the Albums Chart. He was slightly superstitious about it by now, but even if he’d never put a single note to tape, Louis had become an integral part of his life since he’d bought it. All he had done when he was younger was play — all he did now was play. He owed Louis a lot of good memories.

“Thanks for the support, Lou,” he whispered.

Sighing, he rung out a B7 chord, which always sounded lovely to him, and tried to not think about it anymore. He stretched his back, put Louis back in his stand, and headed again for bed, even if he might not fall asleep just yet. He’d find videos online and kill some hours until he felt tired again. He just hoped his brain wouldn’t torture him with more dreams about inexistent boyfriends.

 

*********

 

When he woke up again the next morning, before he opened his eyes, he was feeling strangely good. He couldn’t really tell what it was, since his brain was still in sleep-talking mode where it was just random words and thoughts making it to the surface that didn’t and at the same time made a lot of sense, but he felt warm and comfortable, more than usual. He basked in it for as long as he could before he woke up for real, staying still and snuggled in his covers.

He wasn’t planning on getting up yet but his arm was starting to beg him to change positions. He stretched his legs, his arms, and turned around but when he blurrily saw a guy lying on his bed, facing him, with his hands reaching for Niall’s back, apparently sleeping safe and sound, not at all worried about being in a stranger’s space, he didn’t feel all that sleepy anymore.

Niall heard himself shriek and his elbow hurt after hitting the floor. He lay there for a minute rubbing his injured body parts and when he sat up he saw two very blue eyes staring right at him.

He looked eerily familiar — it felt like Niall had seen his face recently but he couldn’t pinpoint from where. He looked about Niall’s age, had messy brown hair and what seemed like a tattoo around his wrist, though it was hard to see thanks to the shirt sleeve… That was his t-shirt, the one he’d put in the closet the other day. The guy had put on his clothes! “What the fuck!?”

“Good morning to you too, Niall,” the stranger drawled, rubbing his hands over his face and yawning. He sat up on Niall’s bed, looking far too comfortable. ”I’m Louis, nice to finally meet you.”

Niall frowned and didn’t really process any of those words. “What?”

The guy stretched his back. “Might as well just say it: at the risk of you kicking me out, I live here. In that case,” and he pointed over to Louis’s case on the floor next to the dresser. Oh my god, _Louis’ case_. What. “I’m your guitar,” he finished.

Niall just stared at him. “You’re my guitar. For real.”

“Yep,” he nodded.

Niall was left speechless. Some stalker fan must have decided to use Louis’ name and play some twisted joke on him. It wasn’t like he didn’t talk about his guitar by name during concerts and stuff, or joked about his attachment to it openly, it wasn’t difficult to find. Maybe he was still dreaming, though his throbbing elbow wanted to disagree.

“I know, I sound like a deranged stalker and not at all like it’s the truth,” Louis conceded, crossing his arms. “But I am. Your guitar, that is. You can check, it won’t be in the stand in the corner you always leave it at.”

That made Niall react. He didn’t want to leave the stranger on his own, free to roam his house while Niall didn’t pay attention, but the sudden knot in his chest made him ignore his common sense. Even dream-Niall wouldn’t allow anything to happen to Louis, he knew, he’d had that dream before.

Niall hurried to the living room, checked every corner, just in case, but, indeed, Louis wasn’t there anymore.

Any sort of tolerance he could have had for this other ’Louis’ was gone now.

“What the fuck did you do with my guitar?” he shouted as he re-entered his bedroom. Louis hadn’t moved from his spot on the bed.

“I didn’t do shit with it because I _am_ it,” he insisted.

Niall was not in the mood for this. He pointed his finger at the guy with controlled fury. “If you so much as touched a string of Louis’, I will not be held responsible for what happens to you.”

Niall was about to run back out to call the police or something, but before he could make it far, he heard Louis sigh, resigned, and then start singing loudly.

“ _When I woke up in the morning, all I was is yawning, I just wanted custard..._ ”

That stopped Niall’s feet and lungs from working. That could not be what he thought it was. No way in hell, that was impossible.

He quickly turned around, huge eyes on Louis, who was _still singing, dear god_ , and ran back, intending to stop him but slipping and crashing into his bed and into Louis in the process, both falling on and bouncing off, Niall ending on top.

“ _Mama came in, and she—_ ” Niall put his hand over Louis mouth, and he shut up, eyes expectantly on Niall.

“Where did you learn that song?” Niall whispered.

 _No one, absolutely no one,_ had been around when he’d made those lyrics up and no one would ever know he once sang them. Christ, it’d been his first attempt at a song, he’d been alone in his room back in Mullingar, and he hadn’t taken it seriously, he just wanted to see if he could write a song in the first place, and no one was going to hear it so why worry about stupid nonsensical lyrics. And here Louis sang them right back at him.

“I told you, I’m your guitar, I remember you playing it with me. You wrote it with me, too,” Louis managed to get out with Niall’s hand still over his mouth, which he then took off, but his heart wouldn’t be appeased. How could anyone know about ‘Peanut Custard Jelly Time’, he’d never played it to anyone and no one had ever found that file, or he would have never heard the end of it from his friends or his brother. If _they_ didn’t know about it, what are the chances a stranger would?

“Not to break your thoughts or anything but you’re kind of sitting on my lungs, love.”

Niall looked down and, realising his position, jumped off Louis immediately. Then they both just stayed there, sitting and laying on the floor respectively.

He didn’t know what to believe. On the one hand, it was _insane_ to truly think his guitar had turned into a _human_ , but… something inside him was insisting that it was true. Against all logic, and despite the earlier scare, his pulse was regular, his chest unconstricted. He was fine.

He didn’t realise he’d moved until his foot bumped against Louis’ leg, and then he felt electricity through his leg. He pulled away as if he’d touched an outlet, and froze.

He knew this feeling. He’d felt it just last night, though not quite so potently.

Niall studied Louis’ eyes — calm as his body was, the pleading in them betrayed him. They looked like, if Niall refused to believe him, they would shatter.

Niall took a big breath and turned his head to the side, biting his bottom lip. He knew he should still be careful about this but, perhaps (probably) stupidly, he decided to take a chance and believe Louis.

At the very least, he would make sure ‘Peanut Custard’ died with him.

“Fine,” he murmured, “you’re Louis.” Then he squinted and said, “But if you ever sing that song again, I will cut off your tongue.”

Louis only grinned, but Niall saw him sag in relief. Niall then saw him press lips together tightly, though, holding something back for not long at all — laughter echoed around the room.

Niall rolled his eyes and blushed. “I was fifteen, okay, I didn’t know how to write songs yet.”

“It’s still hilarious, though, holy fuck,” he chuckled while wiping the tears that had run down his cheeks.

It was embarrassing, that’s what it was — he had cringed at it when he’d found the mp3 file again and he still cringed at the memory now. “How did you remember that anyway?” and he rested his head on his hand. “It’s been years, going on a decade.”

“It was too good to ever forget,” he replied with a satisfied smirk, “but I’ll always remember your songs.”

Niall looked at his right hand on his lap, strangely touched by the comment. Then neither spoke for a while, letting the situation they were in sink in.

So, his guitar had transformed into a man, he’d decided to believe. He knew his break had ended but he would have appreciated it a lot more if he’d known what was to come.

“How did you… become human, I guess?” Niall asked eventually.

Louis shrugged. “I know as little about this as you do. I didn’t know what had happened until I felt the stand digging in my back, and then I realised I could see my previously-nonexistent _legs_ on the floor. It was a little disorienting, I must say. The pitch black room didn’t help either. So I just… followed my instincts and found you. I was waiting ‘til you woke up but I must have fallen asleep too.”

“How did I stay asleep through that?” He could be a heavy sleeper sometimes but fuck, he hadn’t noticed anything.

“I can be stealthy if I want to,” Louis remarked as he sat up as well. “Better for me, since I had time to think about how to tell you. Just staying here and thinking, me and my thoughts alone.” Louis smiled at Niall, utterly sincere. Like he had nothing to hide about his activities while Niall was asleep.

Niall’s eyes stuck on the red long-sleeved t-shirt Louis was wearing. He had to have dug through his closet to find that, and the rest of the clothes come to think of it. The open door only confirmed it when Niall glanced over.

He got the feeling that wasn’t the only place he’d been digging around, though, looking at his much messier room. He ignored it, though, as they had more important things to discuss (for now). “Can you turn back?”

“Yeah, that’s _exactly_ why I’m still here in human shape, Niall.” He softened the sarcasm by ruffling Niall’s already ruffled hair. “I tried wishing it very intently and that didn’t do anything, and I couldn’t think of anything else. I was waiting for you to hopefully come up with an answer.”

He seemed so untroubled now, like Niall believing him was all he needed and transforming into a human, something straight out of a book, was no big deal and he’d be back to normal tomorrow, so why worry.

Maybe Niall was doing all the worrying for the both of them. “Isn’t this freaking you out? Suddenly transforming, not knowing anything about what happened?”

Louis shook his head, and then scratched his chin. “Well, if we’re being honest, this isn’t that weird to me. After realising I’m the only guitar capable of thought in your collection after all these years, I’ve tried not to question things much.”

Niall didn’t really register what Louis had said, distracted as he looked at Louis’ hair. It was the same colour as the guitar’s wood had been. How exactly had he morphed, he wondered. But then it sunk in. “You could think as a guitar? You’ve been _alive_ this whole time?”

“I guess you could say that.” Louis yawned. “I’ve been conscious, at least, since before you bought me.”

That stopped any other thought going through Niall’s brain. So he’d had a self-aware guitar for as long as he’d been playing it. His guitar had always been alive. Holy fuck.

He’d never really been as alone as he thought he’d been. Or rather, he hadn’t known he’d been kind of watched all along even in his own privacy. And he was going to ignore that slightly terrifying thought.

“Oh my _god_ , I’ve bumped you into so many things!” Niall blurted out, horrified at himself now.  He couldn’t have possibly known what he’d been putting Louis through all along. What if he’d been hurting him much more than he realised?

But Louis put his hand on Niall’s shoulder and rubbed his back, trying to calm him down, spreading electricity all across. “Don’t worry, you didn’t know, and it was nothing serious or I know you’d have worried a lot more. You always took perfect care of me,” he reassured Niall. “You’ve got nothing on the other guy. He used to bump me into things _so much_ , it was constant. I still don’t know how he managed to not leave permanent scratches… he didn’t really remember to keep me in shape. He barely played with me, really, after a while… I was so glad when you played with me way more often,” Louis finished with a huge grin, resting his arm over Niall’s shoulders and squeezing.

Niall smiled as well. Louis’ cheerful demeanor was as soothing as playing with him had always been. His touch was still really weird though, and it was making Niall squirm so he got out of Louis’ embrace and sat opposite him.

The questions remained: first, how had this happened, and second, what were they going to do about it?

He decided he needed tea before any more thinking could be done. He changed out of his pajamas quickly all the while ignoring Louis’ staring, and went to the kitchen. He shivered all the way there. His house had to be like -25 celsius if he was feeling it.

Louis trailed behind him and watched him prepare the tea intently. Niall was confused at first, so he asked why he looked so focused.

“I’ve never actually seen people make tea before,” he casually explained.

Niall’s hand hang in the air for a moment. Right, guitar come to life. “So how do you know what it is I’m doing then?”

“Well…” Louis said as he leaned on the counter, “How do I explain... I can sort of read your mind? I figured out over time that I have a certain connection to my owners that... lets me to know what they know. It sounds creepier than it is?” Louis used as an excuse after Niall didn’t blink for longer than is normal. “It’s not _really_ reading your mind, I woke up with like a basic knowledge of stuff or I doubt we’d be talking right now, but it’s more like I’ve been observing you and learnt through you. I just knew things and picked up on the things I didn’t with you, you know? But it’s still just like I grabbed an encyclopedia and looked at the pictures, I’ve never actually _seen_ it. I’ve been blind until this morning, really. And deaf and mute, I guess? It’s hard to say,” Louis finished explaining, still taking everything far too calmly.

Niall was stuck to the counter, as if the room temperature really had frozen him.

This was _way_ beyond Niall’s level of acceptance of paranormal events, if he even had one. Louis was lucky he had been with Niall for too long to throw him out because stalker was not a good look on him.

“If it’s of any consolation, I truly couldn’t and still can’t read your mind,” Louis offered while hovering near Niall, fidgeting, seeming like he wanted to come nearer but didn’t know if Niall would let him. “I mean, I knew what you were feeling but it’s not the same.”

Oh, great, more revelations about his lack of privacy. This would have to take the backseat of his priorities for now if he wanted to solve this issue fast.

Niall finished making the tea and put down two mugs, Louis nodding his thanks, and tried to understand what could have made Louis transform. He needed the facts first.

“Okay,” and he looked straight at Louis, interrogation mode on. “Let’s see what we can figure out. How did you become self-aware?”

“Mmm… Well, it’s a short story,” Louis said, looking apologetic. “One day I just could suddenly… feel things? And think? I don’t know why, I just could. I knew Tom, my other owner, was talking on the phone and I don’t _know_ what he was talking about but I remember distinctly that I felt like I needed to help. That’s all. I’ve never known why I could understand it or why I could think in the first place, but it wasn’t like I could talk to anyone about it, you know?” He crossed his arms, looking like this was an old frustration for him.

“Did you never try to communicate?” Niall asked.

Louis scoffed. “ _Try_. Of course I did, but all I could do was affect my sound. I couldn’t, I don’t know, do Morse code with arpeggios and there’s only so many times a person will take me going out of tune before they give up and I’m nowhere closer to getting people to notice I’m alive.”

Niall had to agree. He knew the frustrations of Louis going out of tune all too well.

Actually, if he’d been alive all this time, then he’d surely done the same with him. Niall squinted at Louis.

Louis had the gall to wink at him when he noticed. “I used to go out of tune on purpose to fuck with you a bit, I’ll admit.”

He was relishing his memories of torturing Niall, the laughing bastard. That fucking E string had gone out of tune so often he thought he’d finally snap himself and throw the whole thing at the wall. And it was never any other string that did it as often or while he was practicing, only that one. He’d broken it from tightening it so many times it had had its own monthly visit for a new E string. He couldn’t understand why it did that so much and it had frustrated to him to no end. No professional could give him an answer, Louis was _perfectly fine_. “You owe me dozens of E strings, just so you know.”

“Sorry,” Louis giggled. “At least I stopped! And I never did it when it was a show, give me that at least.”

“Mm, sure,” Niall huffed and shook his head but his lips quirked too. At least he knew what it’d been now.

Niall shook his head again — they were getting off-topic. He was trying to think of another question (and failing. His curiosity was flatlining) when the doorbell rang, making them both jump in their seats. What the fuck, it was Thursday morning, who... “Shit, Liam!”

 _I need to keep a calendar somewhere,_ he thought but then, _What am I going to do with Louis?_

They looked at each other, not knowing what to do, until Niall grabbed Louis by the wrist and practically flung him into his bedroom, told him, “Stay in there until Liam leaves, okay?” and closed the door, not waiting for an answer.

What should he do? He couldn’t leave Louis trapped in his room all day, could he? They needed to figure out what was going on, but he couldn’t really tell Liam to go without an excuse, they were supposed to be working today. Louis wouldn’t mind a couple of hours, right? It would be enough to not arouse Liam’s suspicions.

Besides, he could really use something to ground him right now, and Liam was the most down-to-earth guy he knew.

He let Liam in (he also shivered when he took his coat off so his house _was_ cold) and, after chatting for a while, they made their way to the couch, setting everything up to continue where they left on Monday.

All was fine.

Liam had to be observant, though. “Where’s Louis?” he asked, surprised when Niall didn’t bring it over and he didn’t see it in the room.

Niall felt his entire body go rigid, only hearing his heart pounding a million miles an hour. “I, um, had to have him calibrated so.”

“Oh,” Liam easily accepted, but he laughed when he looked at him from the corner of his eye, face towards his laptop. “I hardly see you without him, that’s all. You’ll get him back soon, don’t look so worried.”

“Why would I be worried?” slipped out of Niall, and that was the wrong answer because it made Liam frown and look more closely at Niall.

“You’re always worried when you have to leave Louis with someone else. I’ve seen you sulk about that at least twice. Politely, but still.” He closed his laptop and turned to fully face Niall. “Is everything alright? How have you been? Is this about your episode? You haven’t been very detailed when you reply.”

Niall fidgeted but quickly assured Liam, “No, no, it’s been… well...” he hesitated, remembering the night before, “but, no, no, it’s something else.”

“Niall…” Liam said, almost chastising, “don’t think I didn’t notice your stuttering, but if it’s not your episode, what is it?”

How did you tell one of your best friends that your guitar had become a person? “Um, Liam… if I told you something… a bit weird, would you promise not to freak out and leave?”

“Of course not! You can tell me anything,” Liam insisted.

“Um… Louis, uh...” Niall stuttered, trying to find a believable way of explaining his morning.

“Louis’ right here,” said the man himself, startling them both. He was walking into the room and came to stand in between Liam and Niall.

“I thought I’d told you to stay in my room.” Niall had his hand over his chest and breathed in deeply, trying to slow his heart rate, again. Too many surprises in too few hours.

“Your walls are a lot thinner than you think and I know when I’m being talked about,” he said with a shit-eating grin. “Good to see you, Liam.” He patted his shoulder and then went to the kitchen. They could hear him opening cupboards and putting down mugs and spoons on the table, probably making more tea.

“Niall, what’s going on?” Liam looked at Louis with wide eyes.

Niall grimaced. “Liam, I know it sounds crazy, but... that _is_ Louis. He transformed last night and we don’t know how to put him back…” he finished in almost a whisper. “Surprise?”

To his credit, Liam didn’t bolt, like he’d promised, but he seemed frozen to the spot anyway.

“I didn’t believe it either even an hour ago but... I trust him now. And I would really, _really_ appreciate your help.” He pleaded with his best puppy dog eyes.

Liam took his time deciding what to do.

Meanwhile Louis came back, bringing two mugs, setting one down in front of Niall and sipping the other one, and sat next to Niall, putting his feet awfully close.

“If you shock me while I’m drinking tea, I swear to God,” he threatened. Louis just saluted him with his mug.

“Okay. If you say this is what happened, I’ll believe you,” Liam declared. He was giving them rather curious looks. Probably the shock comment.

Niall ignored them and thanked Liam emphatically. He really felt grateful though — having Liam’s support meant a weight off his shoulders.

Then Liam turned to address Louis. “No cuppa for me?” he pouted.

“I didn’t know if you’d be a dick or not,” Louis said with a sharp tone for how he’d seemed normal with Liam just a few minutes earlier. At Liam’s wounded _I would never_ expression, Louis let it go. “I know, I saw. I’ll be back.”

When he got his tea, Liam was fully committed. “So what do you know so far?”

“Not much, really. You got here in the middle of it, but last night, Louis transformed into a human. We don’t know how it happened,” Niall answered.

Liam looked like pensive for a minute, and sipped his tea. “I’ve never heard of anything like this… but maybe, did Louis have magic? I mean, no one ever told me magic objects could ever do something like this but, I mean... I can’t really think of anything else and you know how magic can get pretty weird sometimes.”

Niall thought about it. He’d been too busy having his sense of privacy torn to shreds but it seemed like a sensible explanation.

Liam was right, though — he’d never heard of a magic object doing something quite so out there. After all, there was no way to argue transforming into a completely different thing was an inherent property of the guitar. Maybe this was beyond what common knowledge he had of magic.

Liam continued. “Did you notice anything strange lately, or anything different that might point somewhere?”

Niall shook his head. “Everything seemed normal to me. I haven’t done anything with Louis but play for the last few months,” he said as he looked at Louis.

He glanced at Louis’ arms. He had rolled up his sleeves when he’d been making the tea and Niall could clearly see the tattoos he’d only glimpsed this morning.

He hadn’t been telling the truth, he thought — he recognised those tattoos, as he’d been tracing them for months now. “Zayn put those drawings on you for my birthday...”

Liam’s expression shifted in realization. “Zayn’s special spell for his ink! He must have put magic in Louis somehow!”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Niall stopped Liam’s train of thought. “Zayn’s special spell is an actual _spell_?”

Liam’s lips quirked. “It’s in the name. Niall, you do know Zayn is a level seven, right?”

“A _seven_?” he squeaked in disbelief.

Magic was measured from one to ten, ten being the most powerful, although eight was more of the actual limit. Only those who measured five and above could actually transfer magic to objects a.k.a. use spells. A seven was pretty powerful.

Liam nodded. “He doesn’t go around advertising it but he’ll tell you if you ask. I would have thought he’d already told you.”

“Nope.” Niall’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t know he could do spells in the first place. I always thought he’d been joking…”  His family (his brother) had fooled him about so many people when he’d been younger, all _he’s an eight, ask him to make your sandwich extra fresh with his powers_ and so on, and he’d made a fool of himself enough times for the mortification to traumatise him, so he’d stopped believing it and just waited to feel the static when people used magic. He’d thought Zayn was a four like Liam, and had only been joking about his spell, since he’d never actually seen him use it.

At least, that explained it. “So that’s why the ink never blurred.”

“Mystery solved,” Louis mumbled next to him.

“You should talk to him,” Liam helpfully pointed out. He could feel Louis’ rolling his eyes at the obviousness of that statement.

Niall couldn’t really think of anything. He was starting to think half his life was a lie, and there were only so many paradigms he could shift in like two hours. He needed to breathe a little. “I’ll be right back.”

He almost ran to the bathroom and closed the door with a bit too much force, but he wasn’t being careful. He washed his hand to concentrate on something else and then splashed his face. He dried off and breathed in deeply, counting to three, and then let it out. He repeated the process two more times, until he felt he could face the rest of the revelations that would surely come.

“...stubborn when he wants to be,” he heard Liam murmur when he neared his living room. He stopped, still out of sight, but slowly got a little closer. He could see Liam and Louis with their heads closer together, looking almost conspiratory.

“I can be _insistent_ too so I’m willing to take my chances,” Louis murmured confidently. He could almost see him puffing his chest, ready to battle anyone who stood in his way. “I think I know Niall well enough to do something about it. I feel that’s what I’m supposed to do, you know? I just never thought it would be from this side.”

Niall was definitely not meant to be listening in, by the sound of that. He tried to hide a little better, but apparently the movement caught Louis’s attention. He practically screamed, “Nialler! Back from the bathroom I see.”

Liam quickly turned as well and said, “Wanna call Zayn?”

“Sure.” Niall looked between the two as if that alone would tell him what they’d been saying about him but neither gave any signs of their previous conversation — Louis was waiting for Niall to get his phone and Liam’s face was obscured by the mug as he drank his tea.

He gave up soon and went to his bedroom, grabbed the phone, went back and sat on the couch again. He looked for Zayn’s contact and pressed the call button, then waited. Zayn didn’t answer. After trying two more times with the same results, he figured he would eventually call back. It wasn’t unusual for Zayn to be dead to the world when his muse visited him, and Niall had told him numerous times it was fine, he completely understood and he should just call or text back when he was available, so waiting would have to do.

“I’d suggest we get writing but, uh, something next to you tells me today’s just not our day,” Liam chuckled. “Feel like hanging out?”

And that they did. Liam made more tea and stayed with them until pretty late into the afternoon.

At first, it was mostly Liam and Niall doing the conversation, Louis occasionally commenting (he hadn’t been kidding about knowing what Niall knew — he remembered a lot of people they mentioned). He poked Niall anywhere he could, though, which was kind of tickling him, making concentrating on a conversation a little difficult. Niall eventually sat on the other side of the couch, leaving Liam in the middle, which didn’t seem to stop Louis all that much from trying to still poke Niall but he was less successful as Liam stopped his attempts, making him stay put.

Once he realised Niall was too far and squashing Liam to get past him wasn’t an option, Louis stayed on his side, a bit quiet.

They didn’t seem to connect much, Liam and Louis. Despite what he’d sort of caught when he was coming back from the bathroom, conversation between them seemed stilted and they both replied more to Niall.

They ended up having lunch together, just some sandwiches with whatever they found in Niall’s fridge. Louis saw his opportunity then and stuck to Niall’s side again, but didn’t poke him anymore, just stayed close.

It seemed Liam and Louis wouldn’t be much more than acquaintances until Liam suggested playing _Guitar Hero,_  and joked that, for being a guitar person vs keys person battle, he was much better at it. That seemed to interest Louis, who challenged Liam to a best of three competition.

Niall wasn’t sure how a guitar turned human only hours ago would deal with anything very dextrous but Louis surprised him by winning the first round. In the end, though, Liam won the other two and, after Louis proved he was a sore loser, they made a full tournament to see who was the ultimate champion. They seemed to enjoy themselves, as the jives became more friendly with each song. Niall declined to participate and declared himself the referee, happy to just watch.

They didn’t talk about the whole magic business anymore, and acted like Louis was just a friend who had come visit the entire time. It was the sort of distraction he had needed since waking up to a stranger on his bed and discovering his favourite guitar was a different kind of special.

They almost tied but Liam had to go, so they decided to do one last song, to the death, to determine the real winner. It was an intense three minutes but Louis won and rubbed it in Liam’s face. He didn’t seem to mind though, just graciously accepted defeat and put his things back in his bag.

“Thank you so much, Li, you have no idea,” Niall said and hugged him tight.

“I’m glad I could help,” Liam replied with his typical warm smile, returning Niall’s hug and wishing him good luck. He went to hug Louis too, whose eyebrows went up but who hugged back all the same. “Take care of Niall, okay, and call if you need anything, please?” he asked as he pulled away.

Louis nodded determinedly and jokingly saluted him. “Aye, aye.”

“How did you convince Niall, by the way?” Liam wondered.

Niall took a sharp breath as Louis said “Oh, I just sang him a little song that goes _When I—“_ but Niall managed to put his hand over his mouth again before he could say any more and maybe stepped on his foot a bit.

“He’s just a very persuasive person,” Niall grinned at Liam while shaking the static out of his hand, trying to put as much innocence into that statement as he could while Louis rubbed his injured limb and cursed in the background.

Liam obviously knew he was keeping something from him but was a good enough friend to ignore their shenanigans, only smiling in amusement. “That’s a story for another day, I suppose.”

After Liam had left, Niall asked Louis, “You didn’t shock him when he hugged you?”

Louis shook his head. “I think it’s just you.”

 

*********

 

Eventually, Zayn called back.

Much as there was a lot to learn, Niall was still too overwhelmed and Louis looked a little tired, so they’d ended up watching tv aimlessly, when Niall heard his phone vibrate on the coffee table, Zayn’s name and picture on the screen. “Hello?”

“Niall, hey! Sorry I couldn’t pick up before, I just had a bout of inspiration and I needed to get it out before anything else, and then I kinda forgot anyone had called,” Zayn laughed apologetically. “I’m all yours now! If you still need me. What’s on your mind?”

Niall took a deep breath and willed himself to stay calm. “Zayn, you remember those drawings you did on Louis for my birthday last September?”

“Of course. You keep asking me about the colours.”

“Yeah, about that… Did you put magic on my guitar?” Niall put it bluntly.

Zayn hummed consideringly. “Possibly? I’m not sure if the one on the ink transfers to the guitar too, quite honestly, it’s a grey area.”

That took any ounce of control Niall had gathered right away. “How much did you put in that!?”

“A little bit, can’t amount to more than a two on the scale,” Zayn replied, a little shocked. “I wanted the ink to last you for a long time so. Niall, is everything alright? You sound weird.”

“Of course I’m not! This day has been surreal, my life since I was fifteen has been nothing like I thought, and I find out you had magic all this time and I’m an idiot for not noticing!” He startled when he felt the electricity again — Louis was touching his shoulder, looking a little concerned. Niall breathed in deep.

“Okay, slow down,” Zayn also tried to calm him down. “First, you didn’t know I had magic?”

“No,” Niall murmured, somewhat embarrassed.

“...Maybe I should have said it more directly instead of assuming you’d figured it out,” Zayn conceded apologetically. “How _did_ you figure it out?”

“Liam ended up telling me when we were talking about Louis,” Niall admitted.

“Oh. I thought you’d figured it out, Niall, since you didn’t question the talk of spells and all that. Sorry you didn’t hear it from me.”

 _No_ , he didn’t want to make Zayn apologize for him being thick and not realising sooner. “Zayn, it’s fine, I’m just too dumb for my own good.”

“You’re not dumb, Niall, don’t be mean to yourself.” Zayn paused. “What happened today?”

Well, bluntness was probably a good decision now. “Um, Louis turned into a human.”

Zayn went silent for a while, not making a single sound. He came back with, “This isn’t some sort of payback for not knowing about my magic, right?”

“Nope,” Niall replied in the most deadpan way he could, leaving no room for interpretation.

“Hello, Zayn! Louis speaking, how are you? Thanks for the tattoos, by the way,” he shouted at Niall’s phone.

“Hello, Louis,” Zayn sounded small when he answered. “You’re truly serious?”

Niall hummed his assent.

They both went quiet then. It felt like hours passed while Zayn digested what Niall had told him and Niall waited for a solution from Zayn.

“Look, this isn’t something that happens,” Zayn began. “I can’t recall a single time anyone ever mentioned objects could transform like that in my classes or in discussions with my family. All my spell does is make the colours pop out! Turning objects into humans is _really_ not my style.”

“So what am I supposed to do now? I can’t do spells like that! I can’t do _any_ spells, how am I supposed to turn him back?” Niall asked, desperate for somebody to have a plan.

“Wait, Niall, slow down. We’ll figure it out, okay? Tell me everything you know.”

And so Niall did, in excruciating detail. He talked about waking up with Louis at his side to finding out he’d been alive the whole time and the possibility he had magic before this all happened. Only thing he omitted was how he’d been convinced.

“I’ve never heard of something like this happening… but I’ll see what I can find out for you, I promise I’ll do every in my power to help you, Niall. This might be my fault for all I know so I won’t leave you hanging,” Zayn promised with confidence.

“Okay.” Niall trusted him to keep his word. “How long do you think it’ll take though?”

“I can’t tell the future but I promise to let you know when I find anything and I’ll come see you soon. In about two weeks, actually.” Right, his commission piece, he’d be out of town for a while. “I’m glad we cleared up the whole magic thing, though!”

That brought a small smile to Niall’s face — at least one thing off the list. “Hey, Zayn, can I ask you something?”

Zayn hummed in affirmation.

“You’re a seven and you’re still an artist?”

It wasn’t common exactly for people of high levels to be artists, in general. They typically ended up doctors or scientists, sometimes more hands-on careers like engineers or mechanics of some kind, positions where their powers could be useful to society. Even those who did go for more artistic careers faced a lot of backlash for ‘wasting their magic’ on ‘frivolities’ like painting and music. They tended to get shunned by the community as well, as if using their powers was less credible or cheating in some way, when it probably took them just as much effort and practise to achieve the same goals.

Zayn hummed. He’d probably heard this question his entire adolescence onwards. “I like drawing and I’m good at it. Why should I do anything else?  Even if society tells me I’m wasting my potential, I can do something that’s uniquely me and I enjoy it. Same as you, Niall.”

Niall felt slightly chastised at that, asking a sort of dumb question, but he also felt a little closer to Zayn, knowing that that same passion for their art drove them both. He already knew but it was nice to get confirmation.

“Oh, before I go, a piece of advice: I’d keep Louis under wraps if I were you. Like, don’t mention he’s your guitar become human _at all_. To _no one_ , besides Liam and me now. He’s… a freak of magic as far as we know, I can’t guarantee the kind of attention he might attract.”

That was ominous, but Zayn had a point. This was unprecedented, and if any films were to be believed, scientists and the government would come after them if he breathed a word about Louis to people, and they’ve be chased from city to city and he would never see his friends or his mom and his career would never go anywhere and they’d be in constant peril from lunatics bent on studying Louis.

...Perhaps not quite like that. But they would ask to see Louis, no doubts separating them. And considering he’d already had problems giving his guitar to other people when it’d still been one, he didn’t want to think about how he would feel now. This problem had to remain theirs and theirs alone.

If it came to it, he’d just introduce Louis as an old friend. It wasn’t a lie exactly.

“I’ll go start searching now but I promise to talk to you soon. Bye, Niall, good luck!”


	2. I just want to know you better

Now that they had basically left it all up to Zayn, there wasn’t a lot to do regarding the whole “how do we turn Louis back?” situation but wait.

In the meantime, Niall had to deal with Louis becoming his shadow. He barely left his side, followed him around from room to room and talked and talked and  _talked_ to Niall.

He’d basically narrated Niall’s life from being sixteen onwards from his perspective, all about that first time Niall had played in front of people who weren’t his family, more or less around the first times he’d played with Louis too, and how he’d been so nervous his fretting hand had been a mess (“It hurt even me to feel that”), more ribbing on him for ‘Peanut Custard’ (he’d thought that song had  _died_ ), reminiscing about the London concerts when they’d first moved and how Niall’s energy had felt different to him at first, getting used to the new atmosphere, gushing about his perfect, velvety case and how comfortable it was, especially considering once they started travelling long distances on the regular, and sort of gossiping about his other guitars, about how his Fender seemed to like him and how his red Gibson  _definitely_  hated him (a rivalry between the two of them was implicit every time), but the Taylor was indifferent, he couldn’t read it all that well (“they can’t think like me or anything but I just  _know_  it”).

He talked about anything, all the while looking curiously at Niall’s every move (“It’s a brand new world for me, Niall dearest,” Louis would justify and wiggle his eyebrows) and grabbing things, making somewhat of a mess as he left them wherever. Niall felt more like a maid than a musician as he went about putting things in their place again.

He didn’t want to say he was being rude but he found himself unable to keep Louis’ conversation attempts going when they strayed from the transformation, stilted after the initial  “yes” or “no” of simple “do you like this thing?” type of questions and couldn’t come up with any follow-up. Typically, it would go something like:

Louis: “So, uh, do you like still like golf?”

Niall: “Yeah.”

[Pause.]

Louis: “Anything exciting happening recently?”

Niall: ”Not really.” [Long pause.] “It’s— there aren’t any major games right now.”

Louis: [excited] Oh! When do they start? I’ve never been good with dates since I’ve never had to keep up with them, what with being a guitar and everything. [Laugh.]

Niall: Around Spring.

[Long pause.]

Louis: [quickly] Right, it makes sense if they’re going to be walking outside all day, and uh, yeah, I guess you’re looking forward to them, right?

Niall: Yeah, I guess so. [Awkward mental scrambling.] It depends a lot on touring how much I get to watch.

Louis: Touring! Of course, you must miss a lot of things broadcast live, right? [Niall nods.] How’s writing coming along? I can’t wait to hear the new songs.

Niall: It’s… coming. [Pause.]

And so on. Hs brain was sort of stuck in a  _magic transformed my favourite guitar-Louis is alive-Zayn please call soon_  loop and, no matter how much Louis tried to hold both sides of the conversation, or how excited he looked when Niall gave him more than the non-committal hum, it was useless. It was like every outgoing, charismatic gene in Niall had escaped during the night and left behind only the awkward, quiet ones. He didn’t know what to say to him and he didn’t have Liam to deflect to anymore. He didn’t get why he was so shy around him now when he hadn’t had such problems the first day, why his communication skills had turned to mush.

He didn’t know how he should feel about it, either. Was Louis a stranger? Didn’t the last eight years he’d had his guitar with him at all times make him more of a friend, mean it should be easier to talk to him? Louis clearly treated him like a friend, but he felt like the worst one in the world by being so unresponsive and unintentionally treating Louis like an unwanted guest. He compensated by letting Louis hang on him as much he wanted and only slightly flinching at the electric shock.

He couldn’t say Zayn wasn’t working fast though, when, after only four days, while he was watching one of Harry’s many videos he liked to send, he heard his phone vibrate.

“Message from Zayn,” Louis, who was sitting next to him on the couch, watching as well, said, passing him the phone.

 _Okay, it’s not much yet and it’s from the internet so take it with a pinch of salt but louis’ not the first object to go crazy,_ and then a link — the page looked pretty shady and conspiracy theory-like, but he read the post anyway. ‘What they don’t want you to know about too much magic’. It was full of stories about numerous objects that had accumulated a lot of magic and how they started doing extraordinary feats — there was a gun that had started shooting bubbles, a metal door that had turned into cotton and glass that had melted like ice, among others. The last paragraph quoted a supposed expert talking about ‘the unintended consequences of gathering vast amounts of magic in a single object’, how that caused the very molecules of the things to change into anything, or at least that’s what Niall got among the jargon Dr. Johnson relied on.

It looked like a load of garbage to him at first glance but, with Louis right next to him, he didn’t doubt it.

He knew that magic users basically transferred a certain amount of magic onto the object itself and that’s what allowed it to perform better, and objects could take magic from multiple people, but they all had a power limit. According to science, each person’s unique brand of magic had a biological component that started to deteriorate the object after a certain amount was used — it depended on the object itself but level ten was the top. More than that and it would just shatter and turn to ashes.

(Using it on anything other than objects was even worse, though. Studies through time had discovered the reaction on humans to magic transfer was pretty similar to acute anaphylaxis and, though it could be treated if it was a small dose of magic, larger quantities were likely fatal — animals and plants didn’t fare well either as they died immediately. It was a virus to anyone besides the owner.)

Maybe Louis had been one of the exceptions? He wondered just how much magic he had had as a guitar to become a  _human_ of all possibilities.

“So, according to Doctor Mustache there, I need to have had level fourteen magic?” Louis summarized, frowning incredulously at the screen. “Wouldn’t I just have turned to ash at ten?”

“You’re asking like I know,” Niall answered. “Maybe objects can take more than level ten in some cases. We should check if you still have magic anyway, since you’re human now and everything, right? I can go buy one of the tests.”

Louis nodded, and then turned away to sneeze. He pulled another tissue from the box on the floor and blew his nose.

“I’ll see if I can find anything for your cold too,” Niall added and smiled tightly in sympathy. “Who knew magic wouldn’t develop a good immune system for you?”

Louis only groaned and snuggled under the thick blanket, curling into a ball of coughing. He’d been sneezing pretty heavily all day and sometimes coughed with such intensity Niall thought his lungs would come out. He didn’t look feverish but he’d been sort of tired and hadn’t moved from the couch much. He’d been tired ever since Liam had left, really, he naped a lot when he wasn’t following Niall, sometimes even then. The couch had been designated his for the time being but Niall kept waking up to Louis’ face in the mornings.

Niall’s working theory was that it had taken a lot of power to transform and he must be resting to get it back in order, but he didn’t seem to feel all that better.

He reacted to touching Niall, though, he thought as he paid for the white box with all the sparkles and the generic  _Magic Meter_ and the reinforced tea for colds, and headed back. The tingling he’d felt from time to time with his guitar and that morning after Louis had transformed had subdued somewhat with each touch, it wasn’t like putting his finger on an electric outlet anymore, but he could still feel it every time, and it seemed almost like a shot of adrenaline to Louis — the one morning Louis hadn’t been sleeping next to him, when Niall came to his living room, Louis had looked frighteningly pale and his skin was like ice when he’d shook him awake for breakfast, but his face gained back the colour pretty quickly after he’d put his feet on top of Niall’s lap and he was noticeably more animated.

“Did you get the test?” Louis croaked, as Niall entered his living room — he was still on the couch but awake at least. He was concentrated on Niall’s laptop — Niall saw the link Zayn had sent earlier still open when he approached, along with several other tabs.

Niall nodded and handed him the box — it had a small device and three sticks.

The process was similar to how diabetics tested their glucose levels — one pinched their finger and drew a small amount of blood, put it on the stick and then stuck that into the device, which would give an approximation of one’s magic levels. The test sold to the public wasn’t 100% accurate (that’s why people went to a doctor) but they were close enough and Niall wasn’t willing to risk bringing Louis to the lions’ den.

They waited five minutes until a beep signaled the results were in. According to the pamphlet, Louis was between a two and a three.

“You must have used almost all of it to transform,” Niall suggested.

Louis just grabbed his used stick and looked it over. “What are your levels, then? I’ve never known.”

“I thought you knew everything about me, with the info dump and all that,” Niall said as he put the device and remaining sticks back in the box.

Louis frowned. “Yeah, I’ve been finding it didn’t fill me in on everything these past few days. Never told me you were so quiet.”

Niall could feel his cheeks growing hotter. He didn’t _know_ why he was being so shy with Louis either, he wasn’t shy at all but he’d been having a hard time, okay? “I’m a 3,” he told Louis, ignoring that last comment.

Louis frowned, made a face like that was clearly ridiculous, and gave Niall a look that made him want to reconsider his answer, even if it was the truth. “Are you sure? I mean, I’ve read the thing Zayn sent like eight times, I can almost quote it word for word by now, and every person whose stuff went crazy was at least a seven. I think the two magic powers interacting was what set it off, you know.”

“But I’m a three, I can’t do any sort of magic, let alone level seven anything,” Niall argued.

“Maybe your level moved?” Louis offered, raising his eyebrows.

Niall shook his head. “That’s impossible, no one’s level moves that much.” Bodies were designed to support a certain amount of magic, and that much alone. Nobody leapt four levels without some sort of consequence. The most someone’s had moved had been with an Australian in the sixties, and that had been  _two_  levels, and he had been riddled with health issues. How would he move  _four_ levels and not notice a change like that somewhere in his body?

Louis rolled his eyes and gestured at himself, and okay, yeah, maybe ‘impossible’ was no longer valid in this kinds of conversations.

Niall was still unconvinced but he grabbed one of the remaining sticks and tested himself anyway, if only to stop Louis’ theory from developing any further.

They waited five minutes for the beep. When they looked at the screen, though, no matter how many times they read the pamphlet, the symbol they saw was unrecognizable.

“Well, I don’t want to say I was right but it seems I don’t need to,” Louis pointed to the meter.

“We don’t _know_ what it actually says,” Niall argued, his fingers gripping the machine.

“It clearly doesn’t say ‘Oh, Niall, you're such a three! Louis’ an idiot for thinking anything to the contrary!’,” he retorted while gesticulating wildly for effect.

Maybe the stick had been faulty. Niall tried with the last one in the box, and his hopes were just as crushed when it gave the same weird response. Louis continued to nod and hum as if it proved his entire point.

“We still don’t know what this means!” Niall protested. “Maybe, if my levels moved, which I’m not saying they did, it went up to, like, a four or something! It doesn’t mean I’m suddenly a seven, or an eight, _okay_?”

He suddenly flinched at the shock, stronger than in the last two days, and looked at Louis’ hand on his shoulder. He noticed how he was holding his breath and exhaled slowly.

“I’m sorry,” Louis said, a little subdued. “I know so many changes must be hard for you, and I probably shouldn’t rub them in your face like that. But don’t you wonder why you can feel that, when we touch?” He raised his eyebrows. “Google says that’s not exactly normal for a three either.”

He didn’t need  _Google_ to tell him that, Niall almost blurted out. This wasn’t the first time he’d questioned where the sensation was coming from.

He had asked his high-level friends, once or twice, what doing spells was like, and they always described a sort of current going through them. If you paid enough attention during the process, you could feel that sort of thunderstorm atmosphere around you, no matter the level. Niall certainly had before.

In all honesty, Niall had never wanted to dig very deeply as to why he could feel electricity when he’d touched or played with Louis. A) It’d never been with any particular frequency, just sometimes, so he hadn’t found any pattern to explain it, and b) he’d always thought it was just his overactive brain projecting onto Louis, looking for meaning where there wasn’t one, pretending he could feel magic. It hadn’t been the biggest assurance of a healthy mental state. And it wasn’t like it’d been something bad. On the contrary, the electricity was a positive — it reinforced Niall’s good mood so why should he question it, right? Why fix what wasn’t broken.

“You know what, maybe I  _am_ wrong and I’m pulling ideas out of my arse! But shouldn’t we try to verify it, just in case?” Louis exclaimed as he dropped onto his pillow again. Niall looked at him and Louis looking as gloomy as Niall had felt just four days ago wasn’t ever his plan. Maybe Louis was right. This was unknown territory for both of them, and there weren’t exactly wrong ideas here. They had to keep an open mind.

He’d have to go to an actual doctor for his levels. They needed someone discreet, though, in case it  _was_  more extraordinary than normal science would allow. Maybe Zayn knew somebody.

Niall poked Louis’ knee and felt a tiny, tiny shock at the touch, which drew his attention again. Niall smiled sheepishly. “You’re right, we don’t know what’s going on. You’re probably right about the ‘magics interacting’ thing.” Niall sagged against the couch too. “It’s just a lot for four days.”

Louis just sat up again, put his arms around Niall’s shoulders and squeezed, “It’s alright,” he said, rubbing Niall’s right arm up and down.

“Sorry for being such mess, I must be the worst owner to have at the moment,” Niall tried to laugh off the gloom that he’d forgot was still there, but he could sort of feel his mind wandering to places it wasn’t meant to go.

“Ow! What did you do that for?” Niall cried when Louis pinched his nipple. He rubbed his chest to alleviate the sting.

“For doubting my genius ideas in the first place,” Louis grinned and pinched his nipple again.

“Stop it, you arse!” Niall laughed and swatted Louis’ hand away when he tried to pinch his stomach too. That quickly devolved into a match between Louis’ pinching and Niall’s swatting until they fell off the couch, narrowly avoiding the coffee table, and didn’t stop laughing for a few minutes, and then Louis started coughing again, which made them laugh harder until Louis _really_ needed to stop laughing. With all the static in the air, the power should have gone out.

Once they calmed down, Louis declared they could deal with magic-related business later and grabbed the remote, put on a movie, enjoyed the mindlessness of  _Dodgeball_. He grabbed the blanket from the corner where it’d ended up all bunched up and pulled it over them both, complaining about how “your house is an iglu, Niall, why don’t you turn on your heater, for fuck’s sake”.

“It’s been broken ever since I’ve been here. Didn’t need to use it before so,” Niall shrugged and moved closer, offered his body heat to Louis. Liam hadn’t been kidding with his infinite variations of _how are you so hot!?_  but it seemed Louis appreciated it as he shivered and curled around Niall even more.

The film went on and Louis kept both sides of the conversation as well as always, commented every other part of the movie, but, without thinking about it, Niall joined on the jokes for probably the first time since the transformation. At first, he’d almost tensed, as if he’d said more than he should, but then, lulled by Louis’ hearty laughter, the hardest he’d witnessed yet, and responding joke, he realised there was nothing to worry about and that this was actually  _good_. No more mental black hole. He could be the friend Louis deserved.

He allowed himself to fall back against the couch and talked more than he’d had in weeks about a dumb comedy.  


*********

 

Despite the whole business with Louis being an active distraction, Niall still had songs to write and Liam didn’t waste time reminding him.

He sent texts every day with little ideas he’d had or maybe a lyric he liked and thought Niall might like too. Niall’s phone was quickly losing space to the amount of little voice notes he didn’t want to lose. Liam was certainly enthusiastic about their project, Niall thought, amused, as he opened another message.

This latest one really caught Niall’s attention — it was one of Liam’s little runs but there seemed to be more of a melody going through it. It was really catchy, and it made Niall think of a different snippet Liam had sent ages ago that could maybe work.

He sat on his couch with his red Gibson (he still loved it even if it apparently was Louis’ arch nemesis) and tried to get a feel for the chords he thought complimented it. It was a simple tune in C Major, even a beginner could pick it out in half an hour, but it felt oddly fun and bouncy. He tried adding the lyrics Liam already had going, and it felt like there was something there.

He was strumming the little progression he had created again when he heard Louis from the kitchen.

“ _Your friends all talk about me, they say I got no chance at all, but your fire is burning deep in my soul, mmm..._ ”

Niall didn’t realise his strumming had got sloppy until the next chord went awfully dissonant and he stopped. Holy shit, that was  _perfect_. It went so well with Liam’s bit, and it started to draw a picture for the story of the song, even if only a vague one.

He hadn’t really thought about Louis being creative with music and lyrics on his own. He’d been more of a conduit before for Niall’s talent but it seemed there had been another reason why he’d always felt so inspired with him.

He felt his cheeks start to hurt they were stretched too wide, and tried to calm himself a bit. To no avail, really — as soon as Louis was coming back with another mug (probably like his third in a single afternoon, still drinking his tea for colds. It’d been effective enough to return Louis’ voice to normal), Niall practically jumped on him to please,  _please_  repeat what he’d just sung. Louis cursed as he tried to keep his mug from tipping over and blinked a couple times, a little surprised, and Niall dragged him (carefully unless he wanted his couch to get soaked too) and played again, looking pleadingly at Louis.

Louis shrugged, sang roughly the same thing again and it felt like a puzzle piece clicking.

“ _It works so well,_ ” he heard himself let slip.

“If music wasn’t something I was good at, I would be a terrible guitar, and I’m your best guitar,” Louis smiled smugly and possibly showed off to the Gibson.

“Not to brag or anything,” Niall laughed.

“I don’t hear you denying it!”

In his excitement, Niall hurriedly recorded the part they’d just done and sent it to Liam (adding  _Louis came up with that new lyric!!_ ). Liam didn’t take long to reply with tons of smiley faces and exclamation marks, surely already thinking up how the rest of it might go. His last text was a little cryptic, though —  _tell Louis I didn’t mean it like that, I trust him :(_

Niall only frowned and showed the text to Louis. He burst into chuckles at that and grabbed the phone from Niall’s hand, typing. When he gave it back to Niall, all Louis had sent was  _you had a point but thanks for the support ;)_

He had no idea what they’d been talking about but he didn’t give it much attention after Liam called and they basically had the session they hadn’t had last Thursday through the phone. The song they eventually created was a fun little tune — nothing complicated, it wouldn’t win them the Ivor Novello or anything but, at the moment, it wasn’t meant to. Simple as it was, it signalled the start of a different chapter for his music and that was what really mattered to him.

Louis was decidedly a participant in the call, adding bits here and there, making light-hearted fun out of Liam and Niall’s cheesy lyrics while he offered just as ridiculous ones, singing his raspy heart out to a demo, and Niall felt himself get lost in the familiar ease of playing with Louis. His tone was as lovely as a human as it had been as a guitar and hearing him again only confirmed it.  


*********

 

That night, as a semi-gift to Louis for helping with the song, and maybe because he felt an insatiable curiosity for what else Louis could do, Niall brought over takeaway soup and made  them a sort of picnic over the coffee table, still mindful of Louis’ diminishing cold. “So, have you always been thinking lyrics while I played with you?” Niall asked as he put another spoonful in his mouth.

“Sometimes,” Louis answered. He’d had two cups already at Niall’s vehement insistence, and he looked about to burst. He still grabbed another piece of bread and bit voraciously, though that didn’t stop him from talking. “I guess I kind of finished the parts that got through to me. It’s not like I didn’t have any free time.”

Niall tried not to be grossed out when a crumb went flying out of Louis’ mouth. “I thought you couldn’t read my mind.”

“I still can’t,” Louis assured. “I had… something like hearing? It was probably hearing, I don’t know, but I made out some stuff, mostly phrases here and there, sometimes full sentences depending on how close you were. Conversations were not easy to follow, let me tell you.”

Niall nodded like he understood but he couldn’t really wrap his head around it yet. He really had  been basically carrying a living being around all the time — a hard-of-hearing, mute, unable to move living being but still.

“It was easier to tell what was happening from what you were feeling, honestly.” Louis shrugged and bit another piece of bread. “And it was hard to follow what you were saying back in Ireland anyway. You Irish lads talk fast. You’ve mellowed since we got here.”  

Niall scrunched his nose, about to say he clearly spoke at a normal speed and Louis had just been a little deaf, but a thought suddenly popped into his head. “You know, you don’t sound Irish.”

Louis stopped chewing and looked at Niall with surprise. “Huh. I guess I don’t.” He resumed chewing. “What do I sound like?”

Niall thought for a minute. “Yorkshire? I think? You definitely sound Northern, but I’m not completely sure which part.” He put another spoonful in his mouth and conversation lulled while they continued eating.

“I wonder why I don’t have your accent,” Louis said while he slouched on the couch, cup now empty. “Considering I spent the grand majority of my life around you and your family back home.”

“Must be another creepy magic thing. I mean, wasn’t Tom English? From what little I remember. You might have got it from him” Niall theorised, and stacked the cups, taking them to the kitchen. He’d take care of the trash later. “Did you like it, back in Ireland?” he asked as he settled in the tiny space Louis wasn’t currently occupying.

“Yeah. I guess it’s home in some ways, since I... grew up there?” Louis frowned. “Can you grow up if you don’t actually grow up?”

“Yeah, sure.” Niall shrugged. “Your mind developed anyway, right? Or have you always thought like you do?”

Louis smirked. “I’ve always been brilliant, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Brilliantly dull.” Niall tried to shock Louis by poking him with his foot, but Louis caught it and shock-tickled him —- a still truly weird sensation —- which of course meant almost falling off the couch in the process of retrieving his limb. He should start avoiding high places when in proximity of Louis unless he wanted to eventually crack his head open.

“Why that tone with me, Neil my dear,” Louis teased as Niall continued writhing, but soon stopped tickling him, though he didn’t let go of his leg. “Anyway, Ireland will always be special but I think I like London better now. The energy’s just different around here, happier now.”

Many would disagree, Niall thought. If anything, a lot of people would think London was pretty bleak, all in all — if you’d asked him a couple of years ago, he’d have counted himself among them but Niall had found a life here that, while it hadn’t been easy at first, had become overwhelmingly better. He had incredible friends who shared his ambition, people he would never have expected to grow so close to when he had still been a by-most-standards newbie musician from hundreds of miles away, on his own in a big city. Hell, while people tended to like him quickly and he never had had problems making new friends, those first months had been  _tough_ , tough enough to make him doubt any and all abilities he possessed, including his innate charm. He’d felt so alone back then.

(There had been a silver lining — even if he hadn’t known Louis was alive back then, his presence had still been a northern star for Niall, an energy that wouldn’t let him get lost in homesickness or when he’d barely had the confidence to sing do-re-mi anymore.)

However, once he’d developed his own group and his music had started to resonate, Niall had found a sense of purpose in London. He wondered just how much Niall’s own feelings about such things influenced Louis’, since he’d relied on them a lot, apparently.

He hadn’t realised he’d been quietly thinking until he noticed movement on his ankle. He blinked — Louis seemed to be drifting in his own thoughts as well, but he was tracing something over Niall’s skin, which, if he paid careful attention — it could be wishful thinking but it felt like a heart-shape followed by a vaguely v-shaped thing underneath. Niall’s lips quirked.

“So.” He cleared his throat and startled Louis back into the conversation. “Favourite place we’ve toured?”  


*********

 

Zayn apparently knew just the person to test Niall’s levels. By Thursday, he sent the address of a clinic not very far from Niall’s house.

Though Niall had been living in the area for about a year now, he still got lost around practically every corner, forgetting the landmarks he chose specifically to avoid this, and making the wrong turns too frequently. Getting lost in London was much too easy for him, and not in the romantic, adventurous way.

Of course, Louis wasn’t any better, though he favoured mocking Niall’s lacking sense of direction than really helping. He looked much too comfortable for being his first time outside the house, a comment he took in much the same manner he had everything else so far.

“It doesn’t feel all that weird,” Louis shrugged, his amused focus entirely on Niall’s confused searching as they reached the corner. “I have your own perceptions to thank, I don’t know why you’re so freaked out—” he said as he almost went across before Niall pulled him back as a red car flew past them and almost ran Louis down. (Niall’s paranoia when drivers were involved always paid off.) “Less cocky attitude, I got it,” Niall heard him mumble as he extracted his claw-hands from Louis’ sleeve.

Louis was fine but spooked enough to shut up for a while after, and he stuck closer to Niall, much more aware of his surroundings, pointedly looking every direction possible before crossing, as if the red car was stalking him personally, waiting to turn the corner and finish the job. He actually ended up finding the street they needed now he put effort into it.

If it hadn’t been for Zayn’s text, they never would have found the right door — it had no signs anywhere and looked like all the other houses in the street. When a blonde girl in a blue blouse, who couldn’t have been that much older than Niall, lead them into the average house and further into an average study, definitely not an official looking office, Niall started to get a bit more nervous. He probably shouldn’t have expected anything legal under their circumstances but the image he was confronted with wasn’t as he’d expected from Zayn’s _leave it to me_.

It definitely could have been worse, though. The girl (“Lauren, please, there’s no need to be formal here”) made him sit on one of the (comfortable, if tiny) chairs in the study and prepared the syringe, making small talk, all while Louis inspected the (rather bare) room, reading the spines of what looked like textbooks on the shelf and looking at the few pretty paintings on the wall, ignoring the medical procedure.

He roughly remembered how this part went — they extracted a small amount of blood, put it inside a machine that scanned it and eventually gave a lot of numbers Niall had never understood, even with the explanations in school, but that amounted to a specific level of magic. Niall could see that exact machine, two of them actually, next to the desk. It would take roughly five minutes. The store meter was just a miniature version.

“You know, this looks more like ‘spare room’ than ‘doctor’s office’ to me,” Louis casually mentioned.

Lauren looked around the room as well with an amused smile. “I hope someday to make it more official but I’m a poor student and this is all the furniture I had to put in here so I make do,” she shrugged.

“You’re already qualified to do this?” Niall asked, a little surprised.

“It’s one of the first thing they teach you as a med student and I’ve been doing this for a while now so I’d say probably yes,” she laughed. Niall was too tense but he still put on his best face — she was helping them after all. “I’m not that far from finishing my degree anyway so why wait when I have this awesome power that can help someone? It’s literally just knowing how to use a syringe and interpret numbers a certain way, push a few buttons,” she added, “and you’d be surprised how many people don’t want their true results leaked. That little number can make a world of difference.”

Niall didn’t doubt it. Zayn was but one example of the expectations of having a high number, not to mention you were considered a threat to others the higher you got, even when you had preventive measures in place, and it wasn’t exactly like life was all the more easy just because you were a low, non-casting number, unless you enjoyed being treated like a liability, unfit for predominantly-magic-filled jobs which of course were the better-regarded ones. Human relationships between casting and non-casting people were a whole other can of worms.

Niall had luckily enjoyed a more-sheltered life, hadn’t had to deal with discrimination for his magic directly. It had all been second-hand accounts, and even the few times he’d had bad experiences, his family and friends had always had his back. He knew that wasn’t a universal fact.

They heard the first machine beep and Lauren pushed her chair closer, took the page it had printed and looked over the results. Niall was fidgeting, and the static coming from Louis’ proximity now didn’t help, but Lauren didn’t make any face that meant she would immediately alert the authorities, just smiled and said, “Congratulations, Niall, you’re a nine.”

Niall couldn’t feel his heart beating for like a solid minute. He was a three, a  _three_. How could this say he was a nine? He was a  _three_ , you couldn’t suddenly leap  _six_  levels, oh dear god,  _six_.

He startled when Louis basically slapped him out of his daze — gentle he may have been but the electric shock was still very potent. “You’ll have a great career as a defibrillator, Lou.”

Louis just huffed a laugh and stopped touching him.

“I’m guessing this is not the result you were hoping for,” he heard Lauren say as she looked between the two of them with curiosity.

Louis replied before Niall could gather his words. “ _He_ didn’t, and the meter wouldn’t back me up but I had a feeling.”

“Oh, yeah, with nines and tens, store meters can malfunction. It’s less common with high-end ones but the general one can be pretty fawlty, hence why I do this,” Lauren nodded. She examined them closely, up and down, consideringly. “You know, I try not to make it my business why people need their magic levels to be secret, so feel free to tell me to butt out but, uh, well. Something tells me this is more out of the ordinary than usual, or this wouldn’t look like such a surprise to you.”

When neither answered her, she added, “If you’ve got any questions, I’m confident I can help.” She smiled encouragingly. “I promise anything you say stays in here, it’s not like I come out winning if this place gets found out.”

Niall and Louis looked at each other. Should they ask? Zayn had specifically said they shouldn’t but they were driving blind around the whole business and  _anything_  could be useful. And she had to know more about magic than they did, could at least give them a way forward. They would just have to be careful about how much they let slip.

Louis raised his eyebrows and Niall nodded in confirmation, telling the bare minimum of their story.

“I see,” Lauren nodded understandingly, although her eyes were wide with astonishment. “It  _is_ a big leap to make in levels. You haven’t had a test since you were ten?”

Niall shook his head no.

“And you haven’t felt any changes in your body, in your health? Anything?”

Niall shook his head no again.

“Wow. I mean, I know I said this could be out of the ordinary but… wow. No one would ever believe me. Not that I’ll tell anyone,” she quickly reassured them.

Lauren took her time, considering it. Niall was starting to regret going against Zayn’s advice when she spoke up again. “I mean, it’s so rare but... there are cases of people whose levels were very uneven with their partners’ and, in extremely devoted couples, their respective magics... ‘intertwined’, let’s say, influenced each other, essentially behaving the same.” She started moving her hands to illustrate. “Generally, the lowest one got closer to the highest but some were the other way around. It was nothing like six levels, which, still, wow,” she stressed, “but, uh, they were big leaps anyway. Any chance you’ve got a significant other, Niall?”

Niall wasn’t sure he could answer that without his face melting — it’d been growing steadily hotter with every word she said after ‘partner’. He could see Louis holding back a smile, looking at the paintings again. Louis was  _not_  his boyfriend, but she’d say  _devoted_. And he’d certainly been devoted to his guitar, which had been alive all this time. Did magic differentiate between the two?

“In a manner of speaking,” Niall ended up croaking. Louis almost burst out laughing but covered it up with a cough. “The cold’s still kicking in,” he fake-rasped when Niall just glared at him.

“Well, he must be _amazingly_  powerful but that could be it,” Lauren ignored them and smiled, clapped her hands together like she’d solved the mystery. Maybe she had.

Had he been so attached to his guitar he’d inadvertently made it powerful? Or was it the other way around and it’d been Louis’ magic that caused the change? It seemed more likely. Maybe it had been both.

“It still could be something else, since those people always report some sign of the level change,” Lauren added, ”usually with body changes like drastic weight shifts or the sudden onset of a mental illness of some kind, mostly depression but it varies, of course. Any significant shift should have manifested somewhere, though, especially at such extremes like yours.” She frowned and glanced analytically at Niall. “You’re sure there weren’t any signs of anything?”

Niall couldn’t think of anything right on the spot — it felt like his mental black hole was back when all he could think about was _I’m a nine and apparently made Louis super powerful_ but Louis seemed to.

“Do sudden mood shifts and, uh, negative thoughts count?” he asked Lauren, his face no longer teasing, and his stare intense.

“It’s not my area of expertise but possibly, it’s worth checking considering—”

“Pleasure to meet you, Lauren, we’ll let ourselves out,” Louis quickly interrupted her as he dragged Niall out the door, Niall hastily saying thanks.

Niall protested as Louis almost ran down the street, earlier fright all but forgotten, and pulled them to a secluded path between two buildings around the corner.

“Louis, stop, stop! Slow down, what happened?” Niall asked, worried at Louis sudden attitude change. He seemed to have been having a laugh at Niall’s embarrassment just before.

Louis let him go, taking with him the tingling he hadn’t noticed in the hurry. He paced back and forth. “It’s my fault.”

“What?” Niall frowned.

“You heard Lauren! People with higher levels affect other people and when levels change, they cause problems. Don’t you see? I was the higher number, it’s my fault!”

“But there wasn’t—”

“Niall, think for a minute! I know you’re in shock but  _think_. When did you start having episodes?”

Niall wanted to calm Louis down, shock him out of it like Louis had done to him many times already, but he looked pleadingly at Niall, and he thought about it. He thought about when he first noticed his episodes, about feeling the avalanche of worries time after time and knowing it wasn’t really normal. He was surprised to find he was almost certain it’d been around the time he was sixteen, seventeen, meaning Louis had been with him for about a year, maybe two.

It made sense. He’d had eight years of constant contact with Louis’ and his high level, why wouldn’t it affect him? His body was probably not built for as much magic, or maybe the magic had aggravated what was already there.

Louis must have seen the train of thought go through his face as he nodded, grim, and slumped against the wall. He slid down and sat on the dusty asphalt. “See? It’s my fault you’ve been feeling like shit all these years. I thought—” he scoffed and shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, I guess.”

Louis was biting his lip with a lot of force and his hands were gripping his thigh. Niall was left clueless as to how to help, still trying to process so much. But, well, there was still the usual.

“Fuck,” Louis jumped a little when Niall sat down right next to him and tapped his shoulder.

“It’s shockingly effective,” Niall blurted out. Louis, despite his distress, huffed a small laugh and rolled his eyes, a clear  _stupid joke_  all but leaving his mouth.

Niall smiled too. He couldn’t let Louis stew on his gloom. “It’s not your fault. I mean, your high level probably didn’t help,” Niall grimaced and thought,  _okay, bad start_ , “but you didn’t put magic on yourself. What were you supposed to do, even if you had known? You told me all you could do was change the sound. You were just a guitar! That happened to have enough magic to gain a consciousness! You couldn’t have possibly known.” Niall poked him and sent another tiny shock. “It wasn’t your fault.”

They stayed there, processing, for a while. After about twenty minutes, Louis seemed calm enough and stood up, pulled Niall up as well. They headed back home.

“If anything, my _devotion_ didn’t help either,” Niall joked.

Louis chuckled. “And thought I was the stalker fan in this relationship.”


	3. all of your flaws and all of my flaws are laid out one by one

The next day was all about magic to a new degree for Niall.

He almost didn’t go through with the idea. But when he’d woken up and seen the dark expression on Louis’ face before he’d noticed Niall was awake, he’d put his own reservations aside and made Louis go with him to a chemist.

First they bought a new, better, magic meter and as many extra sticks as they could get (the man working the register had seemed a little taken aback by the sheer number) then read and watched and listened to as much information as they could on how spells worked.

There wasn’t really a formula to casting, from what they could understand. Besides “think with real intention behind it,” most sites differed on anything specific, like how to focus, what kind of thoughts were really effective, whether hand position influenced the flow of magic, and so on. Niall couldn’t remember high-levelled classmates having this much trouble parsing together how to cast a spell back at school.

In the end, the most valuable thing they could find was “everyone has their own style,” meaning they had to try every method suggested, and, through trial and error (or rather, variations of “are you actually doing anything?”), Niall discovered he worked best through sound — chanting his thoughts, practically singing them, focused his mind on that one thing he repeated. Visualising what he wanted was also useful.

They started with simple things — Niall made his tea sweeter, made his socks more comfortable, made his plastic pen harder. He even got the red paint of his Gibson to look more vibrant, electrifying, than he’d ever thought guitar paint could be. It looked _really_ cool.

(When Niall suggested it, Louis ‘jokingly’ cautioned him about using too much and making his other guitar also gain a mind of its own, and they didn’t need new blood around, thank you very much. Niall just shocked him out of his grumbling and told him he was too special to happen twice, which returned Louis’ smug expression and he almost looked like he would put his tongue out to the Gibson, making Niall laugh.)

After each try, they measured Niall’s levels. While at first they had had the same strange symbol as last time, by the third try, Niall’s magic seemed to register differently, and actual figures appeared on the screen.

All the small spells Niall did only took about a quarter of his level power but Niall didn’t feel the effect. Using magic was actually pretty cool once he learned what he could do.

They got to around level seven before Niall tried something big.

“I really don’t want your house to go up in flames, it’s a lovely house, okay, so _be careful_.”

“I’m not going to burn my house just because I try to fix the heater,” Niall stressed for the third time.

“You remember that Italian youtuber talking about how fire is _unpredictable_? And demonstrating with his burned hair baby pictures?”

“This is electricity, though. No one said anything bad about mixing it with magic.”

“They also didn’t say anything good,” Louis grumbled and crossed his arms. He was standing above Niall, who was sitting in front of the heater, presumably to save him from the flames of hell he was about to unleash. The fire extinguisher was right next to him, too, upon his insistence. “You’re going to leave us homeless and bald.”

Niall rolled his eyes. “I’m doing it anyway. Weren’t you the one complaining my house is too cold?.”

Louis only continued to grumble. “Your feelings never told me you liked playing with fire before.”

Niall ignored him and looked at the heater attentively. He wasn’t exactly sure how to go about it because he sensed there might be somewhat of a technicality issue. Magic was supposed to only enhance, right? But he’d thought about it, and heaters were supposed to give heat so, if his conclusions had been right, he could affect that. He wasn’t making it fly or something, he was making it give out heat again.

Magic should be able to work with that. At least, hopefully. He didn’t know if magic simply didn’t work when the logic was flawed or if it went in more dangerous paths. Neither did Louis, despite all their research, so it was understable he thought Niall was gambling with magic. He was.

He breathed in deeply. “Okay.” He checked one last time it was plugged in and everything was turned on before he put his hands on the heater. He thought about making it work again, about feeling the heat again coming out of it, the mental image of orange wires coming to the forefront. “Give out heat again, give out heat again, give out heat again...”

It wasn’t working as quickly as the other spells had when, after several minutes, his hands were still feeling cold metal. He didn’t give up though and just put more feeling into it, insistent and focused, closing his eyes and and only hearing his voice. “Give out heat again, give out heat again, give out heat again...” _Come on, please work again_.

After several more minutes, with the metal still cold and Niall testing his breath stamina, he was about to inhale deeply again but he was suddenly pulled back by Louis. He didn’t understand why the haste until he saw the heater, looking bright orange and ready to give him first degree burns or something. That had not been like that a second ago. “Guess it just takes longer to work.”

“It looked like it was about to blow fire at you, what the fuck,” Louis exclaimed, wide-eyed. “How much did you put in this thing?” He said as he looked for the meter.

Niall would have looked too but his vision was spinning a little so he decided to carefully lay down on the floor parallel to the heater and close his eyes again. He was grateful it had worked because he was shivering like he’d slept in the snow outside. He wouldn’t mind the flamethrower now really.

Louis sat down, took the blood sample from him and stuck it in. “Congratulations, you managed to down about three levels. Fucking hell.”

Niall just hummed and stayed still, his brow pounding and his hands twitching, a weird sensation he had always hated. He took everything he thought before back. Magic was awful.

“Hey, Niall, you still with me?” He heard before the shock, and the involuntary flailing. Motherfucker, it still hurt.

“Fuck, first your house, now you’re the iglu,” Louis said and got up again. He came back with the blanket from the couch, wrapping Niall in a blanket burrito. “I think I know the _real_ reason Liam called you a furnace now.”

“I hate magic,” was all Niall slurred.

Louis laid down next to him on the floor. He rubbed Niall’s arms up and down trying to warm him up. After several minutes of this, Niall’s hands thankfully stopped twitching. “Better?”

Niall instinctively nodded, which was a bad decision as he felt like the hammer in his head gave a much more forceful punch. He groaned, and Louis resumed the rubbing at a slower, more careful pace.

Half an hour must have gone by like that before Niall could open his eyes and not lose focus. Louis broke into a smile when he noticed, and pinched Niall’s cheek jokingly. “So you didn’t turn into the house into a bonfire, congratulations.”

Niall would have rolled his eyes again if he didn’t think it’d take another half-hour to recover. “Thanks for the confidence,” he retorted.

Louis didn’t reply with any jokes about Niall’s still developing casting skills, just continued smiling, and seemed to let his body loosen against the floor.

He hadn’t realised Louis had been _that_ worried. “Did you really think I would burn the house down?” Niall asked, sounding more hurt than he’d intended.

Louis glanced at him, surprised by the tone. “No, no. Not really. Why?”

Niall shrugged tensely, like he’d absorbed Louis’ nervousness. “You just seem awfully relieved.”

“Oh,” Louis said and looked away. “That wasn’t why.” When he noticed Niall’s expectant expression, Louis sighed, a little resigned, but continued. “It just. Casting hadn’t hurt you before, and it, well. It’s hard to tell when you’re alright since I can’t feel what you’re feeling anymore.”

Niall nodded (slowly) but, amidst everything else, he had sort of forgotten Louis could do that before. They had been only a few throwaway comments. “Do you miss being a guitar, what you could feel?”

Louis considered his answer. “Somewhat.” He half-shrugged. “I try to take it as it comes. I can’t complain when I can _talk_ now. All I ever wanted was to talk to someone else. I always tried to, you know, tell you things but I could never tell how much you’d understood. I knew you knew something was happening but I wanted a real answer. So now, it’s… a dream come true. I can talk, I can sing, I can scream! I can run my voice ragged if I feel like it or just. Anything.”

Niall definitely could see that, with Louis and his lips stretched wide with no trace of cockiness, joking, or amusement at Niall’s misfortune, just purely sincere happiness.

“But… you know.” He paused for a long time. Niall could see Louis trying to gather his thoughts, looking over at Niall occasionally and seemingly weighing what he should reveal. It’d only been a week, there wasn’t a reason this wouldn’t be the case, but Niall felt a sort of dull pain in his gut thinking Louis had secrets, and that he hadn’t completely trusted Niall.

“When I woke up, I thought getting used to living like a human would drive me crazy,” he eventually continued. “How was I supposed to know what to do, right? I’d only ever been a guitar. But, while I waited for you, I realised that I sort of did know, in a twisted way. I had your brain and eight years worth of memories, at least. To an extent, I had the mind already, I only really needed the body. It wasn’t even that difficult to walk or move or anything. So I got used to it pretty quickly. And I really like my body,” he said, looking at his hands with a small smile, appraising himself.

“I just didn’t think about the feelings thing until those days when you were being so, you know, awkward and quiet and polite. I didn’t know if you wanted me there, and I couldn’t find out no matter how much I tried to touch you. I mean, the,“ he made a gesture signalling the two of them, ”current thing reminded me of it so I thought, maybe it was that but when it never worked…” He shrugged. If Niall hadn’t been looking at him very intently, he didn’t think he would have made out the last phrase at all. “I used to know if you were just putting on the smile or if you meant it. And I sort of miss that certainty.”

Louis cleared his voice before Niall could address it, and cracked his knuckles as if the sound could change the tone his explanations had gone in. “Anyway. I’m glad to know you _can_ get cold. Maybe I should have left your hands on the heater instead.”

Niall stared at Louis’ now joking expression for a moment before he got one arm out of the blankets and poked Louis’ cheek, completely serious. Louis’ avoided his gaze again. Maybe he should drop the subject like Louis wanted, but it didn’t feel right. And if the answer to Niall’s next question was what he expected, it meant a different direction for them. He needed to know. “Lou, do you still want to transform back?”

Louis didn’t reply for ages, and Niall didn’t rush him. He waited patiently, focusing on the low hum of the heater and the enveloping warmth instead of Louis’ conflicted face.

“Would you be mad if I said no?” Louis looked at Niall at last. His openly fragile eyes reminded him so much of that first day, when he’d seemed so desperate for Niall’s trust.

“Of course not,” Niall reassured him with his most sincere and friendly smile. “If you want to stay this way, you can. It’s your choice.” He poked his cheek again to drive the point home.

“You’d let me stay with you?”

“Yep.” Niall nodded. “You’re stuck with me for as long as you’d like. You can’t complain about the cold though.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “I’ll complain about the heat then, join Liam’s team.” He still snuggled closer to Niall.

They stayed like that, the heater working properly for the first since he’d been here, the blanket burrito so comfy and the static from Louis a welcoming tingling. It almost felt like the poorer version of resting near the fireplace, like in all the children stories. The thought made Niall laugh, which made Louis ask. He also found it funny.

Niall must have dozed off in the warmth all round him, because when he opened his eyes again he was in his bed, all tucked up, Louis next to him as always, with his hand on Niall’s back, like he’d fallen asleep while stroking it. It was practically numb from the tingling by now.

*********

 

By the time midday rolled around, Niall woke up full of energy, a complete opposite to last evening. He didn't stay in bed for long — much as cuddling with Louis was wonderful, if he kept fidgeting, Louis would surely notice and he deserved uninterrupted sleep.

Besides, Niall had woken up with an idea that he planned to go through, and it would ruin the surprise with Louis breathing over his shoulder.

First thing, though, he needed to measure his level — they had to keep good track now, maybe a log would be good, and they should probably keep track of Louis’ as well, just in case. He heard the ping and the screen showed a comfortable six. It seemed a good night’s sleep was all he needed to start working his magic back up.

Breakfast (his I-woke-up-at-eleven-but-it’s-my-first-meal-so-it’s-breakfast kind) then. He went to his kitchen, opened his fridge and grabbed every ingredient he needed and set out to make the best pancakes Louis would ever have the pleasure to eat. He’d never had pancakes before, especially not Niall’s.

He measured the flour, mixed in the eggs and milk and stirred until he had the appropriate consistency, later adding the vanilla and a pinch of salt, stirring and mixing again — he had the recipe burnt into his brain after all these years. Considering the occasion, though, he decided to try something new. He had powers now, after all, why not a little extra help?

He had never been able to get the same exact puffiness as his mum’s pancakes, or even Harry’s, so while he stirred the mix a few more times, he sang about getting the fluffiest, spongiest texture he could possibly get, really putting a lot of intention behind it, just like all the other spells, perhaps even more. He thought to himself a spell melody might one day end up in a song.

Once he went to cook them, he figured a little more magic might work, so while his fingers were pretty buttery by the end, the pancakes looked absolutely golden, no burnt parts at all. He put a little candle as a finishing touch.

They looked picture perfect and Niall couldn’t have been prouder.

After maybe a little more magic to make sure they stayed warm for longer, he headed back to his room, and sat cross-legged next to Louis, still in deep sleep. Niall was almost sorry for waking him up but this was too important to wait. He shook Louis gently, and when that didn’t work, put his hand over his cheek. It worked as effectively as always, with Louis jumping awake. “Why does it smell like food?” he mumbled as he stretched and blinked the residual sleep away.

“I made pancakes. You need to try them,” Niall poked his shoulder to get him out of bed quicker. Louis was still too slow so Niall practically dragged him to the kitchen, and sat him down in front of the most delicious pancakes his hands had ever made, if he could say so himself. “You’re going to love them, there’s nothing better than pancakes,” he said as he got a plate of his own and grabbed the matchbox.

Louis eyed the small tower with more curiosity then. “Why the candle?”

“We’re celebrating. That you’re staying like this,” he added at Louis’ confused look. “ _Happy human day to you_ —” and Louis’ kick against his leg made him laugh, accidentally blowing out the match. Once he relighted it, he gestured at the plate excitedly and waited for Louis.

Louis rolled his eyes and blew out his candle, laughing when Niall clapped and whooped, grabbed his fork and knife, opened his mouth, took the bite, and chewed. And chewed. And chewed, slowly, mechanically. He looked like he didn’t want to swallow, and once he did, like he’d rather have a sword go through. “Mm, yeah, they’re fantastic, Niall,” Louis said, not at all grossed out. He’d tried. He didn’t look at Niall as he cut another piece and continued eating.

“You don’t like them?” he asked as he cut a piece of his own and put it in his mouth. Immediately he could tell why — it tasted like pounds and pounds of saccharine, despite the fact they were salty, and egg. He couldn’t even chew it. He felt like screaming _it tastes like feet_ , and it would be correct.

He ended up spitting it into a paper napkin, and grabbing the first flavoured drink he could find, washing away as much of the taste as possible. “You don’t need to keep eating it,” he told Louis, still valiantly making the effort, and filled his glass with juice. Louis downed it quickly and gestured for more.

That had been horrible, but he didn’t understand why _._ He hadn’t deviated it from the most basic of recipes he’d done dozens of times before. Nothing had been rotten or sour.

He’d been so proud, hyping them up to Louis. He groaned and rested his head on his hand. “I ruined your first pancakes.”

Louis waved Niall’s worry away and continued drinking his juice. “There’s no way but up now.” He wiped his mouth and made himself more comfortable putting his feet on Niall’s lap. “Next thing you make me try can never be as bad as that was.”

Niall pinched his leg. “Dick.” Louis only grinned in response.

He replayed the whole cooking process in his mind and grimaced at the only change. “I think maybe magic and food don’t mix. Though the tea had been fine yesterday. Pass me the meter, would you.”

Louis stretched as much as he could before he had to get up to reach the far end of the table. “How much did you put in?”

“I don’t actually know,” he said as he pinched the drop of blood off his finger. He looked over at Louis, which reminded him, “You should check your level too. I was thinking we should write it down from now on.”

After finding out he’d put a whole level in his pancakes, and now was sitting at a still normal-feeling five, he passed Louis the meter, and went to grab a sheet of paper, marking down the day and hour, and his result.

He checked over Louis’ shoulder when he heard the ping and was confused to find a 1.86. “You’re lower than before.”

Louis only hummed in acknowledgement, his gaze on the screen.

“You alright?” Niall asked. He didn’t seem under the weather, especially compared to the first days when he’d had that cold. Perhaps it hadn’t quite gone away yet — it’d only been a week. Jesus, _only a week_.

“Yeah, I guess your pancakes attacked me. Were you trying to poison me?”

Niall just snorted. “Believe me, if I wanted to poison you, I would have had Liam make them.”

Louis raised his eyebrows, curious.

“Oh yeah,” Niall nodded, “If he ever gives you anything homemade, try to be discreet when you throw it out the window. That day was just, oh god—do you know about it already, with the info dump thing?”

“No, no, keep talking,” Louis gestured emphatically.

“Well,” Niall started as he sat back in the chair across, “This was around the time I was staying with Harry, remember that? After the first episode he’d been around for. I wasn’t at my best but Harry insisted I had to come with him somewhere super secret or else he’d stop bringing me nachos and leave me to fend for myself, so of course I gave in. It turned out he and Liam had planned this ‘Pancakes-a-Plenty Contest’ — yes, he really did name it that, he made a banner and everything — to see who could make the best pancakes.”

“He really didn’t think it through when he realised we, the not-at-all impartial people participating, would be judging each other’s pancakes. ‘Course I said mine were the best and Harry said his were the best but we came to an agreement when we had to try Liam’s toxic-waste pancakes.” He shuddered at the phantom taste. “I don’t know how else to explain them. Both Harry and I couldn’t get out of bed for the next three days so, we don’t let Liam cook anything more elaborate than a sandwich anymore.”

Louis’ eyes took on a devious glint. It was potential gold. “So who won?”

“Tied. We made Liam decide since he was clearly out of the race and he couldn’t choose so it ended up a tie. I still think mine were better but I’ve never had pancakes as fluffy as Harry’s so, points to him.” He raised a toast to Harry, wherever he was. “Still, I made them try my mum’s when she came over once and Harry will never admit it because he says _his_ mum’s are the absolute best but he couldn’t hide that tear of joy from me. He also ate like eight of them,” he laughed.

“So how do you make pancakes?” Louis asked after they’d finished their tea, getting up and heading for the fridge, a man on a mission. Niall smiled and happily pointed out all he needed.

It truly was a simple thing to make, and he ‘supervised’ as Louis made his very first pancakes, mostly on his own — whenever he so much as moved closer to help, Louis would jokingly slap his hands and say, “Get your filthy magic away from my pancakes.”

He had the milk in the bowl and then he added the eggs — he had a hard time breaking them without the shell cracking too much, and his fingers inevitably ended up coated in egg white, which he proceeded to put all over Niall’s face when he couldn’t help but giggle. Niall batted him away as best he could, taking the flour with him before Louis could even begin to think of a food fight in his kitchen, which neither would feel like cleaning up. He refused to hand it over once Louis needed it and only went closer when Louis promised, “I won’t throw it at you, you can measure it yourself.”

He was on alert for like five seconds but when Louis didn’t do anything he relaxed and started measuring the flour, which of course was a bad choice when Louis’ hand suddenly dipped into the packet and he flicked a handful of flour all over Niall. An offence that couldn’t go without vengeance.

After Louis’ hair was turned white (though he shook it off fairly quickly), he measured the rest of the flour (thankfully there was still enough) and threw the packet away, leaving Louis to mix everything as he washed his face and hands, and then swept the flour off the floor.

Making the batter wasn’t a problem after that but once fire was involved, Louis proved to have a very poor sense of timing, and he ended up burning them, or undercooking and then burning them, only one coming out more normal, though still rather flat and not really golden — he could see the little patches from the remains of butter in the pan that had almost burnt a few parts while the rest looked.a little white. It was the best of the bunch though.

He put the single pancake in front of Niall, awaiting his judgement — if he’d had a chef hat, he’d have been wringing it nervously. It felt like _Masterchef_. Niall hooked the napkin on his shirt, feeling oh so fancy, inspected every centimeter of the plate, and nodded approvingly. He grabbed the honey, put just a little on the side, dipped the bite into it and dove in. 

If a ray from the heavens had suddenly fallen on him while a choir of angels sang, it wouldn’t have been illustrative enough — it was _delicious_. Niall almost felt envious Louis had managed such a good pancake on his first try.

“So?”

Louis apparently couldn’t read the joy about to burst out of Niall, so he pushed half of it towards Louis, handing him the knife and fork. “You need to try it.”

He eyed the pancake nervously still but when he had his first bite, he couldn’t resist licking his lips and raviging the rest.

“ _That_ ’s what pancakes are supposed to taste like,” Niall said. “Hell, my mum would never let you go if she knew you could make them like these.”

Out of all the things he’d said for the last week, _that_ was apparently enough to fluster Louis. “What?” he spat out, colour rising in his face. “How—how would you even introduce us, ‘hey, this is my guitar come to life’? ‘Remember Louis, that guitar I constantly complained you weren’t _careful_ with’?”

“She’d probably be madder with me than with you if you remind her of that,” Niall laughed, amused at Louis’ awkward discomfort at the idea of meeting his mum. “Does she scare you or something?”

“No,” Louis snorted in an attempt to disguise she definitely did. “I’m _sure_ she’d see I’m the better of the two of us and would love to have me as a son. I mean, uh,” and Louis froze, face redder than Niall had had the privilege of seeing yet. “Ugh, fuck off. Forget I said anything.”

Niall decided to be kind and change the subject, and they talked about meeting Liam soon for another session — Niall really wanted Louis to be part of it again.

The day passed and they both went into their own worlds a little. Louis looked busy with the computer and, as if Liam had sensed it all the way across the city, he texted Niall to invite them over on Sunday. Afterwards, Niall felt in the right mood to just jam, get music out, even if it just ended up staying within the four walls of his living room.

Once he grabbed the guitar, he felt under a spell — maybe he’d put one on himself without realising. He’d never felt quite so productive before, even when he’d put out his first EP what felt like ages ago now, just before moving to London, when he’d written enough songs to line his walls from floor to ceiling. Of course, not every single one had been a winner but he’d written so much at that time. Later it had become more challenging to get down as much and as consistently. Today, he wrote and wrote and wrote.

Louis seemed to notice he was on a roll and brought him tea every so often, which was sweet of him, but there was no stopping so he only glanced his way each time in thanks.

“Hey,” Louis called him much later, making him take his eyes off his notes. The lamps had been turned on hours ago but his eyes still had to focus a bit. He hummed in question.

“It’s late and you’ve barely eaten all afternoon. I made dinner,” Louis smiled, a little shy yet clearly proud of himself.

He’d been looking up recipes online while Niall was off in Melody Land, been reading anything that said “for beginners” and making sure they had the ingredients — that’s what Niall found out while they had a really tasty spaghetti with homemade tomato sauce, or as homemade as Louis had dared (he may have slighted resorted to pre-produced when he miscalculated the amount of tomatoes he needed). And, while Louis had made enough to feed three families, it was still an achievement to him, so Niall congratulated him and ate the whole two servings happily.

Once the table was cleared and they’d left a tupperware reserved for Liam, who needed to see for himself Louis’ gift in the kitchen, Niall still had a lot of energy and decided to play a mini-show — apart from the one time they’d written together, he’d never really performed for Louis and, right then and there, he felt like he needed to.

He pulled Louis to the couch, grabbed his Taylor, made sure everything was in tune. “Any special requests?”

Louis had his answer ready in a second. “Fool’s Gold.”

Niall smiled, glad to see it wasn’t only a favourite with his fans. It was one of the only songs he’d re-recorded for the full album. It felt too special not to include it.

He didn’t need a lot of thought while he played it by now, so he got to see Louis mouthing the words along, even remembering to sing the audience bit as he liked to do for concerts, which just made Niall laugh in delight.

He went through a lot of songs, practically an actual set, but he could tell Louis was getting tired, much as he tried to keep his eyes open and engaged on Niall. When Niall stopped to pee at one point, he came back to find Louis already dead asleep on the couch.

It was his turn today to get Louis into a blanket burrito.

*********

 

Niall was glad his job afforded him odd hours sometimes. Unless it was during promo or tour, he didn’t really have a strict schedule he had to follow. He couldn’t lounge around every day but it certainly made time for dealing with the unexpected, like Louis.

It also made days like this much more bearable, when he could wrap up in his comforter and avoid the freezing wind. The past two days had been some of the coldest in the year’s Winter so far, and, though his heater now was working at full speed, the chill was pretty bad anyway — his recovering magic was still pretty effective insulation apparently, but Niall realised just how much the high level he’d reached had helped. He still managed by using thicker socks and wrapping a soft, mushy wool scarf around his neck.

On the other hand, Louis, who had been living off of Niall’s one peach hoodie he didn’t even remember buying and a pair of his sweatpants, was having a harder time. Covered head to toe in layers and layers of Niall’s clothes, he still complained. Niall hoped his cold had subsided enough by then. His level at least stayed consistently at around two, Louis informed him.

He was decidedly “not leaving this bed for the world, Niall, not even for you.” He just brought the comforter tighter around him and napped. Niall still had energy pouring out of him so he moved around, tidied up. He’d been folding some towels when his phone buzzed on the table, Zayn’s photo lighting up. “Hello?”

“Okay, I swear I read through at least a thousand pages, I _swear_ , but I can’t. I have nothing, Niall, nobody knows how to turn Louis back. Unless you want to trust that Russian man with the blood sacrifice—”

“Zayn,” Niall interrupted, wide-eyed. That was enough. And anyway, it wouldn’t be necessary. “Slight change of plans: Louis’ staying a human, with me.”

“Seriously? He doesn’t want to turn back?”

“We’ve been talking and, um, long story short, I guess he feels more human than not now.” Niall shrugged.

“Oh. Okay.” Zayn sounded taken aback, which was expected. “Are you okay with it? I mean, he is going to be with you for who knows how long. We weren’t too worried before when it was two weeks top. He’s going to need a lot more care. His own room, clothes, a _job_ . Does he realise that? _You’re_ going to be mum and roommate.”

Niall hummed. He hadn’t thought about it, and his own role within, at that moment — he’d only been focused on soothing Louis’ worry.

So far, living with Louis had been like a long sleepover, without any complications beyond magic, but they’d have to leave their bubble at some point, and Niall wasn’t sure how Louis would deal with having a human life, no matter how he felt about himself. It was hard to say with any certainty right then and Zayn had a point that it was perhaps a rushed decision.

Louis seemed willing to give it his best, though. He’d started learning how to cook, for one. Why wouldn’t he learn what he needed like that? He was new to all this, but then so had Niall been when he’d decided to live on his own.

It also wasn’t his choice to make — Louis had his own autonomy now, had had it for ages in a way, and if being human was what Louis really wanted, Niall wouldn’t stop him.

He was actually sort of relieved. It’d only been a little over a week and there was still so much they hadn’t even considered discussing or doing. Louis back to guitar shape felt like a too-early goodbye, a step backwards.

“It’s up to Louis,” Niall summarised his thoughts.

Zayn wasn’t satisfied with that, based on the sound coming from the phone. “Niall, can I speak with him?”

“I think he’s sleeping.” He walked back to his room but no, Louis was awake, going through Niall’s computer. He glanced up and Niall told him Zayn wanted a word. He took the phone, and Niall left, wanting to give Louis some privacy.

He stayed talking for probably an hour. Niall tried to find more to clean but there wasn’t anything left, so he ended up focused on making something coherent of yesterday’s notes, and later transcribing them to send over to Liam.

Whenever inspiration came in that urgent, “have to put it all down _now,_ ” way, he didn’t usually pay all that much attention to what he was writing — it was very much a stream of consciousness sort of exercise, and he tried to not read it again for at least a day, leave some sort of distance, and see what he thought was still worth keeping later.

Looking at his journal now, he couldn’t have been more delighted. He read the first pages again, purely for contrast, and confirmed he hadn’t imagined it — his lyrics were happier.

Based on experience, he couldn’t always tell when his... depressive episodes left. Sometimes he noticed pretty quickly, sometimes it could be a couple of weeks, but a mostly-fail-proof method was what music he was favouring, either composition-wise or just for pleasure. If he could get enraped in a thumping bass or a joyful chorus without feeling like a weight was dragging him down as soon as the beat stopped, he knew it was pretty much over. Lyrics were not different.

“What’s got you so cheery?” Louis said from behind Niall, coming from the bedroom into the kitchen. He sat down next to Niall and gave him his phone back. He also pinched Niall’s cheek for good measure.

Niall batted his hand away. “Nothing, just.” He took a deep breath, and let it out with relief. “Things are looking up again.” He looked at his notes again, and his lips stretched even wider. He showed the lyrics to Louis, flipping between the pages as he had before, pointing out specific parts and reading them out loud when Louis had difficulty understanding Niall’s hasty handwriting. “I think the episode’s going away. I should actually tell Harry too, since he was so insistent I let him know.”

Louis also smiled and cheered, good-shocking Niall with a pat on the shoulder in congratulations — he looked pleased, even happy, but his expression was shallow, his lips being tugged by mixed emotions.

Since Lauren had suggested the reason behind his episodes, they had… not exactly avoided the subject but neither had brought it up either. Discovering your favourite guitar had been slowly poisoning you and that your attachment to it had probably aggravated the matter wasn’t really bonding material. But with Louis’ outburst right after, Niall knew he couldn’t have got over it. Not yet.

Niall grabbed Louis’ hand across the table, drawing Louis’ attention. “You know I don’t blame you, right?”

Louis pulled his hand away and crossed his arms. “Why not? It _is_ my fault.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Niall argued with a gentle tone.

Louis gave him a look that said how little he believed that, and he turned his face away. His posture read “there’s nothing you can do about it so leave it alone”.

Niall _had_ left it alone for a couple of days, and all that had achieved was Louis’ guilt festered undeterred. Niall thought back to all those times Liam and Harry had pestered him to talk about his feelings and kind of got where they were coming from now, if they felt the same concern attempting to crush their chests.

He pulled the chair closer — hopefully, the static was as comforting to Louis as it had become to Niall. He waited until Louis looked at him, after what must have been fifteen minutes of looking at the calendar on the fridge. “I don’t blame you. Okay? I don’t blame you. How could _we_ have known it was you?” He raised his eyebrows with a hint of challenge. “You didn’t know either, remember? I don’t feel anything bad when I think about you in context. I don’t feel betrayed or angry.”

“I do,” Louis whispered, his shoulders hunched. “My one purpose was to make you happier, not trigger depression.” He swallowed with a little difficulty, and used his sleeve to wipe the tears now leaking down his cheeks. “I wish they’d never given me any magic. It’s not like I would have known any better.”

Niall felt his stomach tighten and a different kind of shock go through him, and he stabbed his fingers on his palm in an attempt to subdue the feeling.

Maybe things would have been the same if there hadn’t been high-level magic involved but he couldn’t really think of playing with Louis and not feeling that energy exchange, a consequence of the magic, anymore. It was imperceptible to anyone but him but it was evident to anyone who heard them.

“I would have, Lou. I know it.” He wrapped his arms around Louis and traced the patterns he remembered from the tattoos anywhere his hands were, letting Louis calm down at his own pace.

Niall spent the day talking about his episodes in detail and Louis listened. Louis spent the day talking about his new-found sense of guilt and Niall listened. The lightning clouds around the house dissipated and left a pleasant buzz.

*********

 

Sunday came by sooner than they realised.

Though Louis looking like the Michelin Man was something to behold, Niall insisted he couldn’t leave the house like that (the hoodie had seen better days, really) so Niall’s bed ended up with an array of colours as Louis tried on shirt after shirt, never actually picking one, just saying “Maybe, I’ll leave it there for now,” and getting something else out.

“You’re doing this just to make me clean after you, aren’t you?” Niall smirked. He heard Louis’ muffled reply of, “How can you doubt my honest intentions, Niall, I want to look my best as you insisted I should,” as he scavenged inside the closet for what few items were left, and Niall rolled his eyes. “Sure. You’re going to learn how to iron all my shirts, though, they’ll get all wrinkly at this rate,” he said as he started putting some semblance of order on his bed. He zoned out until Louis sent a shock through him as he poked his leg with his toe.

Louis had chosen a white shirt with faint blue strips, left untucked, and was holding a velvet red sweater over himself. Coupled with a pair of washed out light jeans, he looked presentable, unlike the last week. There was something about it that reminded Niall of something else but he couldn’t think of what — it was just a vague picture in his brain, with an accompanying vague feeling of warmth, but he felt like he’d seen someone like him, pretty much looking like that, somewhere. It would bug him all afternoon.

He looked good, though. Really good, actually. The warm red suited him and the light blue really brought out his eyes, which Niall now realised were looking right at him. “So, I think my searching paid off,” he gloated.

Niall blushed and just hummed an affirmative, and went to take the mugs on his bedside table back to the kitchen before they left. Louis followed him out soon after and headed to take a shower.

Niall had to change as well so he came back and picked his outfit. He went with something simple, too — jeans, his boots, and a striped blue sweater.

He measured his level, and received a 6.35 as an answer. He asked Louis, once he left Niall’s room looking dapper, how his levels were doing. “Good,” Louis replied while putting on one of Niall’s jackets, his back facing Niall. “Still at a two. I guess that’s my real level.”

They were ready to go in no time, and Louis got to have his first experience on the underground that day, or at least the first he’d been human for. It was pretty funny to see Louis so entranced by the amount of people going through the stations, and all the advertisements and maps lining the carriage. “How is this so different from when we went to see Lauren? You were much more relaxed.”

“It just is,” Louis shrugged. “I guess you don’t like using the tube much because I don’t have that many memories of it.”

He had to drag Louis through rush hour because he stayed staring at everything and people were pushing him, and he didn’t want Louis to get lost. The constant tingling going in his hand, even through the gloves, reassured Niall that Louis was still there beside him.

Turns out, once they arrived at Liam’s, they weren’t the only guests. “You visited Liam before me?” Niall pouted as Harry came over to hug him.

“Oh, Niall, you’ll always be the owner of my heart,” Harry laughed and put a hand over his chest. He looked behind Niall.

“Hey, Harry!” Louis greeted excitedly.

“Hello! And who is this?” He said, looking over at Niall amused.

“He’s an old friend of mine, came over to visit,” Niall answered as casually as possible. While Louis had decided he wanted a human life, the instinct to keep what happened hidden won out. They’d probably eventually tell Harry, if Louis ever wanted to. “Harry, Louis. Louis, Harry,” he gestured as he made the introductions.

At the name, Harry lifted his eyebrows. “Louis? Like your guitar?” His sharp eyes were clearly saying _tell me you didn't lie to me and you didn’t name your guitar after this guy_ and hopefully, Niall’s steady gaze said _no, no, I swear to god I didn’t know he was alive when I chose the name_.

“Hey, Louis, come here! I was wondering the other day, can you play an actual real guitar? Hi, Niall!” Liam said as he dragged Louis over to his living room.

Niall waved and watched Louis go, realising only then, when the electricity stopped coursing through him, that he hadn’t dropped Louis’ hand since the station. It was kind of strange to not feel the static going through him after basically being connected to Louis the Generator 24/7 for the last week.

He was glad to see him still bonding with Liam. It was good for Louis to have someone but him to talk to and he seemed to get along well with Liam.

Niall blinked and realised that he had stayed staring in the direction Louis had gone and that Harry was still next to him, probably questioning Niall’s behaviour. He turned his head to find Harry biting his lower lip and looking down, seemingly holding himself back. He exhaled and shook himself, though the smile popped out anyway, and looked at Niall all amused.

“What’s so funny?” Niall asked.

Harry shook his head again, a _nothing, nothing_ gesture, but as Niall raised his eyebrows, he laughed. “You just. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you make that face.”

There was only one face his friends ever remarked on consistently enough to call it That Face, and he wasn’t making that face. Probably. “What face?”

Harry just dismissed the topic altogether with a wave of his hand. “Never mind, it’s nothing.”   

They stood there for a minute, in a weird awkwardness they rarely experienced, so Niall ended up blurting out, “Did you know Zayn has magic?”

Harry looked at him funny. “You didn’t?”

And that was enough to break the ice. They chatted all about Niall’s break, Harry’s time on tour, who he’d seen, his new friends, Niall’s decision to make Liam his new producer, and so on. Niall told him about the positive progress of his episode, and Harry hugged him tight, and started swaying Niall around when he complained he was running short of air.

They’d moved to the kitchen to get a beer each, familiar in Liam’s house like in their own. They were discussing guitar pedals when Niall heard Liam playing his lovely piano from the living room (nothing unusual when around Liam) but, as soon as he recognised that melody, he knew Louis would be dead.

Niall tried _really_ hard not to react lest Harry got whiff of it and joined in (maybe introducing Louis to his friends had been a bad call) but it was stronger than him and, after excusing himself to the toilet, he made a hard turn toward Liam and Louis, finding Liam laughing his head off and Louis looking mighty satisfied with what he’d done. It didn’t stop when they noticed him.

“Hey, Niall,” Liam acted all innocent and kept on playing.

Niall hoped it would feel just as much as slap as he knew it could, but when he put his hand on Louis’ arm and he didn’t react to it, only grinned all the more satisfied, Niall just looked a little ridiculous. He took it off and grumbled, “You are not welcome in my house anymore.”

Louis wasn’t fazed. “Liam will take me in. Right, Li?”

Liam nodded happily and changed to a happy, boppy tune, clearly not on Niall’s side.

It wasn’t long before Harry got curious as well and they introduced him to the new, piano version of ‘Peanut Custard’. Niall knew his paleness didn’t help hide how red his face had become, the hue never changing across the rest of the visit, since they kept bringing it up.

He had a good time nevertheless. Yes, his friends took the piss out of him but it’d been so long since they’d been together. He’d really missed having Harry’s crazy stories, told with a seriousness that added to the humour, and Liam’s all-consuming habit of turning anything into a song. His friends could be really fucking ridiculous but he loved that about them, and they seemed to take Louis in so warmly, just like he had always been part of the group, which really lifted a weight he hadn’t known he was carrying.

They stayed at Liam’s for hours, but eventually they had to make their way back. They said all their goodbyes, promising to see each other soon, and started walking towards the tube station. Niall pulled his scarf tighter — the wind was starting to pick up. “Did you have fun?” he asked Louis.

“Yeah. Harry was much calmer than your feelings made him out to be,” Louis said in a low tone, his eyes blinking often. “Of course, your feelings were all over the place when you go from shamelessly flirting to awfully embarrassed in a couple of hours of meeting the lad.”

“Don’t bring that up,” Niall cried as he hid his already reddening face on Louis’ shoulder. He’d been so drunk the night he’d met Harry and really lonely, and Harry was a good-looking young man, and maybe he hadn’t realised how heavily he’d been flirting at the time. Luckily, Harry didn’t hold it against him and was only amused at Niall’s embarrassment the next time they saw each other. He’d never got over it, even after three years. Louis laughing at him didn’t help either.

Conversation was pretty scarce from then on. Louis seemed tired so Niall just made sure they got the next train back as fast as possible.

They were walking towards his house, the streets pretty quiet for a change. Niall looked at Louis and noticed then how slow he was going. His face was a lot paler than this morning, and he was struggling to breathe in deeply. Niall had had panic attacks once or twice before, and he knew what your throat closing, having to take deeper and deeper breaths that filled your lungs less and less, felt like, and more specifically, what it sounded like. He must have been hiding it before but now it was too bad to pretend otherwise.

He stopped Louis before he could continue walking and make it worse. “Lou, are you okay? What’s the matter?”

Louis had a hard time talking at all, couldn’t get anything out before he leaned on Niall, still struggling to breathe.

Niall tried to soothe Louis by repeating “it’s okay, it’s okay,” and rubbed his back to warm him up in the chill — Louis was too cold, and if he got any more scared, he would only make the situation worse. They needed to remain calm, and Niall really needed to know what to do. He could call Liam for help but they were so far away now, it would take longer to wait for him than otherwise.

He couldn’t take Louis to a hospital. He would never be able to explain the whole magic part. But he had to take Louis somewhere.

He looked at the street signs desperately, trying to figure out just how far from his house they were, and remembered where they were walking. Lauren was just a few houses away and she already knew half the story — surely she could be trusted enough to help them again.

The journey there was slow and careful — he didn’t want to agitate Louis anymore than he needed to. He would have stopped a taxi but he couldn’t see any empty ones on the way, and they made it there before he could.

She didn’t open the door immediately. Niall was getting more nervous that perhaps she wasn’t even in and his whole plan had blown to pieces, but, after what must have been five really long minutes, he was greeted by a confused Lauren, who went into full professional mode when she noticed Louis hanging onto Niall.

She sat him down and tried to get Louis to breathe slowly. She went for a bag in another room and pulled a stethoscope out, listened to Louis’ breathing closely, heard Niall’s explanation, and came to a conclusion.

She quickly left and brought back a small vial, putting some into the syringe. “He’s too late to try with the inhaler, he’ll need something a little stronger, okay? This should help.” She made Louis lie face down, gently, and, before he could realise, injected the drug. “It will hurt for a while but you should start to feel better soon, okay, honey?” she said as she rubbed Louis’ arm, trying to get him to stay calm.

Niall only looked at her instruments, recognising what she’d done. “Asthma?”

Lauren nodded. “I’ve had enough attacks in my lifetime to deal with them on my own.”

They waited there for half an hour (Lauren decided to check Louis’ level meanwhile, and Niall didn’t see the harm in it) and Louis did improve. He looked fragile still but his chest wasn’t rattling anymore. He was calm enough that Niall wasn’t worried about leaving him resting when Lauren called him aside.

“Okay, I know I said I don’t get involved but your friend is too cold and too pale to be normal, even in this weather, and I don’t know his original level, but I am absolutely certain it _cannot_ be 0.92. No one gets below one, no one, or they’d be dead. You need to start talking, now.”

And so Niall talked. Her determination and strong tone, her words ( _or they’d be dead_ ) frightened him enough to spill it all. Fuck Zayn’s advice. There was no point in asking Lauren for help if she didn’t know everything, and at this stage it was too late not to.

“This wasn’t even remotely what I could have expected,” Lauren said, after what must have been a full ten minutes of shocked silence. “Luckily for you, I _think_ I know what to do.”

On went her explanation: “I think that electric current you both feel is because you haven’t stopped transferring magic between you. You didn’t know how to cast yet when you transformed Louis, correct? So you didn’t know how to cut the flow with your guitar and it’s still happening — don’t feel bad about it — not everyone finds it instinctual to cast, that’s why you have classes — and my guess is that when you started using spells, you ended up draining Louis’ magic, since yours naturally stops generating at a lower level, even when it’s moved — you probably felt better at about a five, right? — but your body has, wrongly, become used to nine.”

She looked at the door separating them from Louis. “He did a great job hiding it if he was acting normal at a level one.”

Niall had had to sit down and put his head between his legs, unless he also wanted to faint. His stomach turning wasn’t any help. He had been, unknowingly, slowly killing Louis — he understood better than ever now how Louis had felt when he’d had this piece of news. The universe really didn’t want to give him a break.

Lauren sat next to him, and rubbed his back comfortingly. “You brought him here and you’ve told me everything. You’re doing fine, you’re helping him now.”

Niall continued trying to breathe properly. “What can we do then?”

Lauren’s answer wasn’t immediate. “If you could transfer enough of your magic to him, he’ll have enough to live normally, and this time you cut the flow — I’ll show you how, it’s not difficult.”

“But isn’t transferring magic to other humans dangerous?” Niall frowned and gave Lauren a disapproving look.

Lauren shook her head and dismissed Niall’s worries. “You’ve been doing it for the past week, so I’m thinking he’s been depending on yours so far, and hasn’t created his own yet, so there hasn’t been a conflict between two different kinds to cause a reaction. I’m hoping he’ll make his own once your connection cuts. Then we’ll see.”

Lauren sighed when Niall asked how long this would take, and sounded just as defeated as Niall when she answered, “Look, I don’t know. This isn’t something typical. I’m basing my entire diagnosis on cases I’ve read of different magic disorders, so I can only guess. I’d say he should start creating his own magic at around two weeks, like babies. If not...” Lauren shrugged again. “He probably never will, and I don’t know what that would mean for him. You might end up draining him completely, even with the severed connection.”

“But what if I don’t use any more spells? Wouldn’t that—”

“We use magic all the time, Niall. You didn’t realise you were using it until I told you you could, but we always are. And if he doesn’t generate any and can’t take from yours… it’s not looking sunny. It could be even worse if he does start generating his own but it conflicts with what you’ve already given him. I’m _hoping_ , based on what we talked about that first time, that it would be compatible with yours but it’s. I don’t know, Niall. I’m sorry.”

“I can’t see him then. After this.” Niall stared at Lauren, waiting for bad news, and bad news he got when Lauren nodded apologetically. “At least until we know.” He steeled himself and asked, “What are the chances of the best case scenario happening?”

Lauren grimaced and wrung her hands together. “Total honesty? Slim to none. Magic disorders like this are tricky things.”

Niall needed a few minutes on his own after that. He practically locked himself in the bathroom, trying to keep the tears at bay, and making sure he didn’t look like he hadn’t been about to cry in case Louis was awake when he stepped into the room.

Arrangements had to be made, too. He grabbed his phone and dialed. “Hey, Liam? Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine, don’t worry, but, um, I have a favour to ask. I’ll explain when you get here...”

Once he came out, Lauren talked to him about the procedure. It was the same as casting a spell but now he had to make the conscious effort of closing that bridge between him and Louis, including it at the end of his chant. She also made him promise to find a drug with a name he couldn’t pronounce correctly to start the process of inhibiting his body’s need to go beyond level six, a more appropriate one for Niall.

Louis was semi-awake when Niall entered the room. He was groggy and tired, so Niall’s appearance went unnoticed, or Louis didn’t remark on it at least. He didn’t remark on Niall’s fake optimism — after Louis had told him specifically how he felt about not knowing with certainty anymore when Niall wasn’t being sincere, Niall felt like a huge dick for exploiting that, but Louis had fooled him too, even if ultimately it was unsuccessful, so, eye for an eye.

They explained the situation to Louis, including the fact he couldn’t stay with Niall for two weeks, with no room for argument — everything had been set already and Louis would just have to deal with it, or so they told him. Niall ended up omitting a lot of his actual decision.

Louis reluctantly agreed with the plan, and despite Niall’s fear of causing a terrible, irreversible, fatal reaction on Louis the moment their hands met again, nothing of the sort happened. He couldn’t get rid of the tension all the way down his spine the entire time they touched anyway.

Louis fell asleep soon after, his body adjusting to the new energy, and Liam arrived around ten minutes later.

Liam wouldn’t drop his arms from around Niall the entire time the situation was explained, sat on the floor against the wall, opposite the couch Louis was currently lying on. On some level, Niall wanted to get out of the embrace because this wasn’t the end of the world, he’d had time to think about it (you didn’t need to be in the same room to be friends with someone) so he didn’t need the comfort. He even made some efforts to move away but Liam held on tighter and tighter each time until Niall relented.

On a different level, deep inside him and unacknowledged, he couldn’t have been more grateful for Liam’s physical support. He couldn’t actually express how despondent the situation made him, nor that he hadn’t the right to preemptively doom his and Louis’ relationship when he didn’t know the outcome yet. A side of his heart told him he shouldn’t throw eight years of companionship, of friendship, down the drain, but a little whisper from the other side, the one where his gloom had made a home years ago, reminded him that he’d almost killed his dearest friend, would almost certainly continue draining him despite his intentions, and cutting ties was the only choice if he wanted Louis to have the normal, human life he’d so wanted, so the sooner the better.

Liam was really the only thing that kept him from covering his ears and chanting _take me back, take me back, take me back_. He understood more than ever the temptation those children books with magic much more powerful than could be real indulged in — Louis saying “I wish they’d never given me any magic” was stuck on a loop.

Once they’d agreed on plans, Niall left to pack. He hadn’t seen his dad in a while.

“You know, when I first met him, he told me he was here to help,” Liam said as Niall headed for the door, leaving a lot on Liam’s shoulders. He’d never be able to repay him. “That he had a feeling that was why he’d transformed. He promised me he’d make you feel better, no matter how long it took him, and I hope he can keep his word."

 

*****

 

Niall was on the plane seat as they waited to take their turn for take off for at least the third time. He’d probably have been much more annoyed at how long it was taking if he hadn’t felt so miserable and partly like a coward.

He knew Ireland was maybe taking the distance thing a little far, but he couldn’t... he couldn’t stay in London knowing that Louis was just a couple of hours away and yet utterly unreachable.

He tried to find a comfortable position for his legs, an impossible thing in airplanes. Luckily, the person who’d bought the seat next to him hadn’t shown up, so he had the spot next to him available for his never-ending gloom. It wouldn’t surprise him if his magic suddenly decided the gloom needed a physical form as well.

He tried to concentrate on the fact he was going to see a lot of his old friends and his dad again. He would have had to visit at some point anyway, so he wasn’t abandoning Louis. They were still friends. This whole thing wasn’t going to change that fact.

Niall still felt terrible when the thought that he wasn’t actually sure their relationship would survive after the results passed through his mind. It’s just, could he really talk to Louis without ever having any physical contact with him again?

He knew the answer should be a resounding yes, yes, of course, but it felt like a very deep no.

They’d always touched. The only thing Niall had ever done was touch Louis because all he’d ever done was play with him, and even recent events hadn’t stopped him. It was his way of feeling connected and grounded and like he wasn’t hallucinating everything — even with simply the energy that emanated from Louis’ company, he’d known he was fine and really not dreaming. Hell, if they hadn’t touched and he hadn’t felt that spark, he never would have believed Louis in the first place.

He needed it, and now it would be gone.

Niall closed his eyes and rested his head on the side of the plane.

 _Stop it_ , he told himself, _stop behaving like you’ve just sent your lover off to war or something_.

He huffed a semi-laugh at that. It reminded him of Lauren asking him about a significant other — she hadn’t known she’d been asking about Louis and his magic yet. He remembered how hot his face had felt, and how he’d had to wonder just how magic interpreted his feelings, his devotion that had brought a guitar to life.

His mind suddenly flashed back to the night before Louis had rudely surprised him by turning human. To think the day before had been one of his lowest in a while was no longer surprising. All because of a dumb craving his body had.

That dream had been such shit to have. His dream boyfriend had been so lovely and grounding and had made him so happy, only to disappear so quickly. Niall saw in his eyelids the few images his brain could still conjure up from the dream, and he saw the shaggy chestnut hair and the blue eyes that had looked at him with such warmth and support.

His brain had to be a massive cock because he looked an awful lot like Louis, now that he really thought about it.

His face scrunched and he tried to take a deep breaths before it all got out of hand.

So that’s how his magic interpreted his feelings. Give him _exactly_ what he wants, and why not kill two birds with one stone, the guitar wants to come to life as well. Why not give Niall the perfect person he could ever want and then make him slowly kill them?

He couldn’t believe his magic had specifically engineered Louis to be like his dream.

He couldn’t believe that same magic had then decided to be shit and take him away just as things were getting better.

He couldn’t believe he’d never touch Louis again.

A strong gnawing sensation passed through his entire body and he gripped his armrest, tried pinching himself when that wasn’t enough. The electric shock would come in useful right now, he thought and then forcefully erased from memory.

He hadn’t realized he’d been about to cry until a tear, then another, went down his cheeks and pulled him out of his brain. He wiped them as subtly as he could — last thing he wanted was people asking him why he was crying. He managed to control his breathing and calm down, at least as long as he didn’t think about it. It was probably the best plan, ignoring it.

Yeah, that would do. He’d have to learn eventually anyway.


	4. you can be who you were or who you'll become

His dad had been more than surprised at Niall’s sudden visit but he’d been welcomed with open arms.

The first week was spent mostly unpacking and seeing more of his dad than he had in years — he caught up with everything he could possibly have missed. His dad caught up with most of Niall’s life back in London as well.

He reacquientenced himself with his old room and with his old house, spent a lot of time just looking around at all the pictures in the walls and the way not a lot had changed in the three years he’d been away. The furniture was still the same, save for the tv, and his dad still hadn’t got round to re-painting the kitchen.

(When he was looking at a photo of his family on one of his brother’s birthdays, he realised he’d never taken a photo with Louis, in the haste of everything.)

By the second week, he’d mostly settled. He visited many of his favourite places in town, particularly his favourite pub, and he got to see many of his friends again. The inexplicably sunny weather followed him on his trips.

He never explained why he came back. He convinced his family and friends he’d just been feeling homesick, and he had missed them, he wasn’t lying. Many noted Louis’ absence when Niall declined to sing for them or said his Taylor was back home.

On the second Friday, he had a text from Liam saying, _Lauren says it’ll take another week_. Niall had long made up his mind by then, and his gloom had pretty sound arguments.

Liam was keeping in touch, of course. Just because Niall was taking another break didn’t mean anything else did, and his management had ‘asked nicely’ for a taste of what he’d been doing. He couldn’t come back empty-handed, with only snippets of demos in varying degrees of completion. His life hadn’t stopped.

(One day, he got a shock of electricity from the shopping trolley and forgot how to breathe for a couple of seconds.)

They talked about the progress of Louis’ magic, though Liam never gave him any definitive answers since Lauren couldn’t confirm one way or another yet. (Liam insisted he should ask the _actual patient_ instead but Niall always had an eventuality when the topic came up and Liam stopped insisting.) Liam told him about living with Louis — he heard the little sessions he and Niall had while working on songs, and Louis was apparently enjoying them so far.

Life continued and Niall was doing fine.

(Sometimes, in the dead of night, he called his own mobile to feel the vibrations in his hand, though only for a few brief seconds. That’s all he allowed himself.

A few times Louis had inadvertently done it for him while he’d been asleep but Niall had thrown the phone across the bed when he’d noticed. He’d try to not pay attention to his phone again after that.)

Around the middle of the third week, Harry all of a sudden invited Niall over and Niall had had to explain he wasn’t in London, having forgot to tell him. Two days passed without any news when, at around two in the morning, Niall was woken up by Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!,” meaning Harry, who knew there wasn’t a time difference with Ireland, was just being a dick.

“So, correct me if I’m wrong but when you heard that you were taking Louis’ magic by accident, you ran away, and uh-huh, I’ve been filled in. I know _everything._ I’ve known for _weeks_ and _not_ thanks to you,” Harry said, no need for hellos anymore.

Niall tried to protest. “I didn’t run—”

“You ran away, Niall. You flew all the way to Ireland because you’re scared you can’t be in the same room as Louis anymore,” Harry said. “And I get it. In the fours hours I spent around the guy, you barely pulled apart, and he made it pretty fucking clear he wasn’t moving away every time I looked at you two. But don’t you see? _He won’t go_.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” Niall sighed. He would have prefered to do this face to face so Harry could have gathered half his thought process from posture alone but a phone call it was. “Harry, I, I don’t think he should cling anymore. I’m going cold turkey with him.”   

“Why? You don’t know if he won’t be fine.”

“Lauren said the chances were slim to none. Do you want me to build his hopes up for nothing? It’s better if he gets used to it before it makes things worse.”

“Niall, that.” Harry made a frustrated noise, and Niall could picture him rubbing his eyes without noticing. “Fuck it, I’ve always let you deal with your feelings in your time, be there if you wanted to include me, but I’m not letting you ruin something you clearly love because you think it might not work. Didn’t your episode end already?”

The pang in his chest was worse than the kick from electric shocks. “That’s low from you, Styles.”

“You’re making me resort to it, and I’m sorry, I really am,” Harry said, “but you’re letting your doubts rule over you. You’ve been with him for how long now?”

“A week,” Niall murmured.

“Eight years?” Harry overrode. “Did you think he wouldn’t fight for you? He’s going to contact you as soon as you set foot in London again, if he hasn’t already tried.”

Niall didn’t mention the calls. “But if he’s near me he might die.”

“He could still say ‘hi’ in other ways. Have you heard of texting? The Internet? A letter? Or are you still stuck on carrier pigeon?”

Niall wanted to kick him for that, but a giggle burst out without his permission. “Mine is trained to poop on you on sight.”

Harry laughed. “I’ll have my umbrella ready.”

Niall smiled and wondered, not for the first time, how Harry managed to bring levity to any situation. Maybe that was Harry’s own brand of magic.

“I mean it, Niall. It’s not as bad as you see it, and everything will be just fine when you come back. I promise. It will take some getting used to, I’m sure, but don’t lose that bond you have with him.  Don’t give up just yet.” There was a small pause before, “How will we ever see you make the face again otherwise?”

Niall cut the call short but sent a little heart via text instead.

  
*********  


The four week mark passed and he had to go back to London — he had a session with Liam to actually record the basis of his next record. He said bye to his dad and promised to come back as soon as he could.

He’d thought about Harry’s words, especially during the plane journey. What could possibly happen next still made him nervous.

He pushed the glass doors as he entered the studio building. He took the stairs to the next floor, and entered the room marked “1”. Liam’s laptop and headphones were already at the table but there was no Liam anywhere — he was probably in the bathroom or in the kitchen, so Niall started unwrapping himself, from the scarf to the gloves to the thick jacket.

He dropped onto the black leather chair and faced the mixing desk. He took a deep breath a let it out slowly. Harry was right. “Things haven’t changed.”

He felt a tap on his shoulder, so he turned his head and did a double take. “Louis?”

Louis waved. “Hello. Do you know how hard it is to drag Liam away from this room?”

“I do actually,” Niall gave a faint laugh and stood up in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“Came here to see you record, of course. I want to hear those songs in their final form already.” He was slightly shaking, as if he was holding back a lot of energy. “Come on, Niall, I know I can’t electrocute you anymore but you can’t be that unobservant.”

Niall was baffled until the electrocution ringed a bell and he realised he’d been tapped on the shoulder two seconds ago. His eyes grew in shock at Louis’ grin. “What did Lauren say?”

“Oh, nothing new really, just that I’m stable at a three and I’ve generated some of my own magic, though I’ll have to take those god awful pills for another two weeks to be really sure. I cannot explain how foul they taste,” he finished and added a gagging motion for dramatics. “Also,” he said as he pulled a small box out of his pocket, “Lauren says you need to take these once a day for the next week and to come see her as soon as possible.” He left it by Liam’s computer.

Niall had kind of stopped listening at “stable” and “generating my own” and he felt a smile bloom on his face, but he kept his hands behind his back, after training himself not to want that tingling feeling anymore. “Congratulations!”

Louis received it with the biggest satisfied smile. “Of course, you could have found out sooner if you’d picked up the phone this last week.”

“I was busy,” Niall lied, stabbing his right thumb on his left palm.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis patted Niall’s head. “I can’t read your feelings anymore but that doesn’t ring true even to me. You told me you’d keep in touch, you lying bastard.”

“You never told me your level was so low and almost died,” Niall retorted.

“Okay, _maybe_ that was my fault,” Louis admitted with a shrug. His hands started fidgeting. “For all I hated how I couldn’t know what you didn’t tell me, I kind of did the same, didn’t I?”

Niall hummed in reprimand. “We need to keep less important secrets.”

“True.“ Louis nodded. “So in the spirit of honesty, I kind of really love you.” Louis kissed Niall’s temple at Niall’s frozen expression. “Liam said you couldn’t be trusted to figure it out on your own. I had faith in you, Niall, where did I go wrong?”

Niall slapped Louis’ arm, and sort of missed the usefulness of the shock.

“No pressure, though, okay?” Louis rubbed the injured spot. “I mean, it’d be cool to, you know, maybe date or something if you’d like to but, uh, take your time and everything.”

Date Louis? Niall’s heart picked up speed. He… didn’t know if that’s what he felt. It’s just, his subconscious had literally created Louis to his specifications and of course he loved Louis’ friendship and general company and he kind of had trouble letting others be with him...

Niall’s cheeks turned a bright pink. He’d had a whole flight on the way to Ireland to lock up these feelings and they were rioting at this very moment. And if Louis was willing to give him time to figure if this was deeper than he’d thought, then… “In the spirit of honesty, I’m not opposed to the idea. At all.” He didn’t get to say anything else when Louis decided to use that pulsing energy and suffocate him through hugging. It wouldn’t be a bad way to die.

“Can I come back in? My laptop misses me,” Liam pouted from the door. Louis almost threw his shoe at him.

A pretty good chunk of the album was recorded that day, in spite of Niall’s trouble with not laughing during the vocal takes. If Liam had had to push Louis out a couple of times, he’d earned it.

The studio was also almost destroyed by Niall when Liam and Louis made him listen to the newest version of ‘Peanut Custard’ — now with harmonies! The dicks had even included a line from Harry and Zayn each ( _even Zayn was in on it. They were all traitors_ ) and Liam had mixed everything. It sounded incredible for a joke song. Too bad Niall had to delete this and every copy of it that existed. He’d buy Liam a new computer.

They went out to celebrate a variety of things that night (Niall’s return, Louis’ recovery, the best record that would exist in stores soon as told by Liam) and Niall caught up with Liam and Louis’ adventures during the past month, and laughed harder and harder at the ridiculousness that increased with every drink they had. They _really_ got along by now.

Louis had got himself a job as a waiter nearby Liam’s place, which had been more of a struggle to keep than they realised at first (good thing Lauren knew someone who could help them in the documents department. A whole Students That Did Technically Illegal Things network existed, they’d gathered from select comments) but Louis said it was a great place so far. He’d met a ton of people in Liam’s area and made a new friend, a girl called Bebe, who showed him the ropes and gave him the best advice on how to not end up dropping dishes on the floor.

He’d started making a life even in Niall’s physical absence, Niall noted. They toasted to a new chapter.

When time came to go home, Louis doubted for a second which side to go, instinctively going to Liam’s but then realising that Niall was right there. He looked at Niall and raised his eyebrows, but Niall knew what he was asking and nodded. “If you want to.”

Louis stood next to him with two quick steps.

Liam was about to just wave goodbye, but Niall was not going to allow that. He pulled Liam’s wrist and wrapped his arms around him with all his might — Liam was quick to reciprocate just as tightly. “Thank you. I could never repay you for everything,” Niall murmured.

“My pleasure, Niall,” Liam murmured back.

A few more heartfelt minutes passed  before they let go, and Liam and Louis hugged each other with as much affection as Liam and Niall. They parted ways, and Niall and Louis walked back since they weren’t far from home.

“So,” Niall began, “I see you’ve made a life without me.”

Louis glanced at him and smiled. “A little bird called Zayn beat it into my head for an hour that I shouldn’t only rely on you, if I was going to stay. That I couldn’t leave all the responsibility of my care up to you. And he had a point.” He nodded. “If I’m going to be human, I need to act like one. Time couldn’t stop just because you were far away.”

They continued on their walk at a leisurely pace even with the weather — the night was surprisingly clear but the wind picked up and Niall had to wrap his new scarf tighter around his neck.

“I see something changed with you too, after all,” Louis remarked while he poked Niall’s cold and red nose.

“Well, I’m no longer a nine so now I feel the cold like the rest of you, mortals,” Niall shrugged. His shoulders remained raised and he pushed his hands even deeper into his pockets.

Louis had his own gloved hands inside his jacket pockets but he pulled one out and said, “Mmm, I’ll be the judge of that,” extending it towards Niall, signalling for his.

Niall thought it was just a dumb ruse to hold hands so he rolled his eyes and unsuspectingly offered his hand to Louis, who pressed hard on it.

Niall immediately jumped back and pulled his hand away. Even after close inspection, he found nothing weird but he knew what he’d felt and that vibrating sensation, though not really the same, had been familiar enough to take him completely by surprise.

He didn’t realise tears had started running down his cheeks until the wind passed by him, and he noticed Louis frantically pulling out his glove to throw a hand buzzer away, all the while panicking. “It was a stupid joke, I’m so sorry, Niall, did I hurt you? The man assured me it didn’t hurt but I should have known it was stupid, I’m so sorry. Niall? Niall, are you okay?”

Louis’ warm hand was wiping the tears away, tracing the marks over the sides of his face, and that completely broke him down. They were lucky nobody was passing by, as Niall let out sob after sob, clutching onto Louis, who was still panicking until Niall managed to say, “I missed you so fucking much.” Louis hugged him and started murmuring soft assurances. At one point, he hiccuped noticeably, and one hand momentarily left Niall’s back.

They stayed surrounded by the cold for a least fifteen minutes but never once felt it.


End file.
